On November 29 the Alliance for Excellent Education held a webinar featuring two educational leaders—Yvette Jackson of the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education and author of The Pedagogy of Confidence: Inspiring High Intellectual Performance in Urban Schools; and Julie Evans, chief executive officer of Project Tomorrow—who described how to change the essential learning conditions within high schools and provided the pedagogical and technological tools to enable and empower students to achieve high intellectual performance. Alliance Senior Fellow Mariana Haynes moderated the discussion and fielded questions from webinar viewers across the country.

The recently released report On Track for Success: The Use of Early Warning Indicator and Intervention Systems to Build a Grad Nation is the most up-to-date and comprehensive view on the cutting-edge EWS. The report overviews the research, shares emerging best practices from the field, and provides policy recommendations. The Alliance for Excellent Education, Civic Enterprises, the Everyone Graduates Center, and the Data Quality Campaign held a webinar on November 9 to discus this topic. Guest speakers included Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education; John Bridgeland, chief executive officer of Civic Enterprises, Bob Balfanz, codirector of the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University; and Lyndsay Pinkus, director of national and federal policy initiatives at the Data Quality Campaign.

On October 20, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee passed a bill to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), by a bipartisan vote of 15 to 7. The next step in the legislation process is for the Senate HELP Committee to hold a hearing on the legislation and then for the bill to go to the Senate floor. But when is the bill likely to go to the Senate floor and how likely is the bill to pass when it gets there? And how does the Senate bill compare with the House’s plan to reauthorize ESEA?Members of the Alliance’s federal advocacy team held a webinar on November 1 to answer these questions and more. They also reviewed significant changes to NCLB that were contained in the Senate bill and took questions from webinar participants.

Hear from representatives from the Alliance for Excellent Education, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the National Council of La Raza, and the National Urban League. The panelists discussed the current political dynamics, details of the waiver package, and strategies of how communities of color and Native communities can work together and with their states to incorporate reform. Panelists also answered questions submitted by viewers.

Please join the Alliance for Excellent Education on Tuesday, October 18, 2011, from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., ET, for a forward-looking discussion with state leaders on the opportunities and challenges that will be part of the implementation process of the common core state standards. Immediately following the briefing, please join the Alliance for a book party to celebrate the release of Something in Common: The Common Core Standards and the Next Chapter in American Education (Harvard Education Press, 2011), the soon-to-be-released book by Alliance Senior Fellow Bob Rothman.

On October 5 the Alliance for Excellent Education hosted an interactive webinar to provide an update on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), known as the No Child Left Behind Act. The webinar featured a roundtable discussion with Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, and representatives from the Alliance’s federal advocacy team. The webinar also provided an opportunity for the speakers to address questions submitted by viewers across the country.

The Alliance for Excellent Education and the New Teacher Center held a webinar October 4 for a discussion about the role of states and districts in supporting new teachers through comprehensive induction. A new Alliance policy brief was released at the event—“A System Approach to Building a World-Class Teaching Profession: The Role of Induction”—that examines the research on teacher turnover and performance and the implications for designing induction supports and professional learning as part of a coherent teacher development system.

The Alliance for Excellent Education and the New Teacher Center held a briefing on October 4 for a discussion about the role of states and districts in supporting new teachers through comprehensive induction. A new Alliance policy brief was released at the event—“A System Approach to Building a World-Class Teaching Profession: The Role of Induction”—that examines research on teacher turnover and performance and implications for designing induction supports and professional learning as part of a coherent teacher development system.

The Alliance for Excellent Education held a briefing on September 15, 2011 to release its most recent report from Carnegie Corporation of New York, Informing Writing: The Benefits of Formative Assessment, which identifies instructional practices shown to improve students’ writing abilities. Following a presentation of the report’s findings, experts explored the implications of the findings for instruction, assessment, and research.

The Alliance for Excellent Education and the Center for K–12 Assessment & Performance Management at ETS (K–12 Center) held a webinar on September 13 from to consider the consortia’s plans. Leaders of the two consortia provided an update on their activities, and a former state and district superintendent, Pascal D. Forgione, Jr., and a former governor, Bob Wise, placed the consortia’s work in a policy context.