Press Releases

Learning Forward announces the release of Meet the Promise of Content Standards: Professional Learning Required, a brief on the critical role that professional learning plays in implementing content standards.

Learning Forward, the organization that created the Standards for Professional Learning, and Tutor.com, the leader in one-to-one, on-demand learning solutions, are collaborating on a new, high-impact service to maximize the effectiveness of thousands of instructional coaches. Offered through the Learning Forward Center for Results, Coaches’ Connect will provide support to instructional coaches from experienced, master coaches online using Tutor.com’s real-time learning platform. The service will launch in September 2012.

Learning Forward has received a $350,000 grant from MetLife Foundation to encourage and enable the implementation of standards in professional learning to increase effective teaching and collaborative learning, particularly in high-needs schools. This grant will help Learning Forward and allied organizations build on past MetLife Foundation support to further the valuable work of three initiatives: the Learning School Alliance; implementation of Common Core State Standards; and exploration of effective professional learning practices in other nations. The grant also supports an examination of the implications for practice of findings from the annual MetLife Survey of the American Teacher.

Learning Forward and Corwin announced the second-grade team at McWhirter Elementary Professional Development Laboratory School, Clear Creek Independent School District, Webster, Texas, as the winner of the Shirley Hord Learning Team Award. This award is given to a team of teachers that demonstrates Learning Forward’s definition of professional development in action.

As part of Learning Forward’s initiative to develop a statewide, comprehensive professional learning system to support educators in Kentucky as the state implements Common Core State Standards (CCSS), more than 40 members of the Kentucky education community have been selected to serve on a task force to lead the initiative.

New data indicate that teacher satisfaction is at its lowest point in more than 20 years, signifying a greater need for professional learning that strengthens leadership and acknowledges educator expertise while building teacher capacity and improving student achievement.