Randi Weingarten--UFT president, AFT heir-apparent--must enjoy fighting losing battles. Her latest hopeless quest is to keep New York City schools from using "value-added" achievement data to evaluate teachers. "If one permitted this, it would be one of the worst decisions of my professional life," she told the New York Times.
At first I wasn't going to buy Liam Julian's latest article, ("How's your drink?"), but I think he makes a good point. On some level, what people want in education is not exclusively about learning.
Thomas Friedman decided in 2005 to overturn two millennia of astronomical wisdom by releasing a book called The World Is Flat, the crux of which is that the United States faces growing economic competition from countries such as China and India. The tome's title is cliché, but its omnipresence defies disregard.
What type of formal education makes great CEOs? According to Forbes magazine, chief executives earn shareholders similar returns whether they have a Ph.D., MBA, J.D., master's degree, or even just a bachelor's degree. What type of formal education makes great principals?
"Please," cry the teachers of Dallas, who are currently disallowed from giving their students any grade lower than a 50 percent, "let us bestow upon our pupils the grades that they in reality earn." Superintendent Michael Hinojosa scoffs at such pleas.
Paying teachers extra for serving in high-needs schools is one of the few ideas embraced by presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle this election year. And even lots of teachers like the notion, at least in theory.
British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver caused a stir recently when he offed a chicken in front of a live, studio audience. The demonstration's point (buy ethically reared fowl), and perhaps the demonstration itself, would be right at home in the U.K.'s new curriculum.
When 45 percent of Pennsylvania's 127,000 high-school seniors fail basic reading and math exams, when close to 75 percent of Philadelphia's 2006 graduates don't pass them, what is to be done? The state's education secretary, Gerald Zahorchak, has an answer.
Andrew J. RotherhamEducation SectorJanuary 2008
