New Citizens' Guide: Exploring the American Job Crisis

While joblessness currently affects the lives of millions of citizens, political discussions surrounding this topic are most often cloaked in posturing, blame and ideology and presented in jumbled terms. A new book from Jean Johnson and Scott Bittle provides a resource for the average American, concerned citizen and voter. Where Did the Jobs Go – And How Do We Get Them Back? offers a nonpartisan perspective on the national jobs crisis and examines job stimulus proposals from all sides of the political spectrum – left, right and center – including balancing the budget, cutting taxes, reviving manufacturing, improving education, and losing the gap between the rich and the poor.

NEW RESOURCE: DATA-INFORMED DECISION-MAKING TO IMPROVE COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENT SUCCESS

The use of data and evidence to improve policies, programs and services is at the core of community college student success efforts across the country, and a new guide from Public Agenda serves as a resource for community college leaders in data collection and analysis. Building Institutional Capacity for Data-Informed Decision Making, the latest from the Cutting Edge series of reports produced for Achieving the Dream, will help more colleges build institutional research (IR) and information technology (IT) capacity and create a strong culture of evidence in which data and inquiry drive institutional efforts to close achievement gaps and improve student outcomes overall.

NEW GUIDE: PROPELLING SUSTAINABLE CHANGE IN EDUCATION REFORM

A new book from Jean Johnson provides a resource for education leaders on a variety of reform areas, including evaluating teachers, turning around low-performing schools, and building support for world-class standards. You Can't Do It Alone summarizes a decade of Public Agenda opinion research among teachers, parents, and the public. It offers tips on what leaders can do to more successfully engage these groups in reform areas and integrates a theory of change and public learning developed by our founder Daniel Yankelovich. It also provides some practical rules of the road for promoting the kind of dialogue that leads to consensus and action.

NEW RESOURCE: ENGAGING TEACHERS ON TEACHER EVALUATION

Teachers have told us that they're ready to talk reform and are eager for constructive feedback; they just want to be included in the discussion. Yet, time and again, teachers' voices are left out when new teacher evaluation systems are designed and implemented, often to the detriment of the evaluation plan.

Everyone at the Table works to change this. An online resource center developed by Public Agenda and American Institutes for Research, and funded by the Gates Foundation, Everyone at the Table provides flexible materials to genuinely engage teachers and stimulate candid and respectful dialogue that gets to the heart of their perspectives on teacher evaluation.

FIND IT FAST: GREAT RESOURCES FROM PUBLIC AGENDA