A few days ago, 206 ?ineffective? or twice-rated ?minimally effective? teachers were dismissed from their positions at the District of Columbia Public Schools thanks to the District's new teacher-evaluation system, IMPACT.
Twenty years ago I taught English in a small town located in southwest Poland called Gora. At the time the country was just beginning its political, economic, and social transition away from communism. I was in Warsaw the night Lech Walesa gave his acceptance speech in 1990 as Poland's first freely elected president since before World War II.
As colleges drop the SAT requirement, death becomes the only real threat to job security, and
?The theory of evolution is based on almost as much evidence as the theory of gravity.?* ?Lorenzo Sadun, Math Professor at the University of Texas
If the country's schools of education have been one of the more prominent bulls-eyes for school reformers, this new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality, ?Student Teaching in the United States,? is bound to unnerve a few ed schools; 99 of them to be exact.?
?Geography is not just about maps.''' * ?David P. Driscoll,? Chairman, National Assessment Governing Board
?The DOE's policies are actually fostering divison and conflict, largely between charter parents and traditional public school parents ."* ?Bill de Blasio, NYC Public Advocate
Mike isn't wrong when he notes with satisfaction that, on some indicators and at some grade levels, poor and minority students in the U.S. are doing better today than a decade a or so back. Only a churl would say that's not an accomplishment worthy of notice and some pride.
Here's a new problem facing American education policy: Something we're doing seems to be working.
Dan Ariely has a provocative but mostly wrong-headed article in today's Washington Post roundtable on the Atlanta testing scandal.
New York City is closing down its ineffective and poorly designed merit pay system in light of a RAND report published yesterday.
?It's like pouring buckets into the sea. The only way to make change with private money is to dig a new canal, build dams, reshape the public school system.'' * ?Jay P. Greene, head of Department of Education Reform at University of Arkansas
It's been four years since the last book came out, but it feels good to be obses
Matthew Stewart, a stay-at-home dad in a wealthy New Jersey suburb, is leading a battle against the "boutique" charter schools that are being planned for his community.
It's funny that Nicholas Kristof compares the education system to an escalator in his column in this weekend's New York Times. We know a great deal about broken escalators here in DC ? our subway system is full of them ?
?With these charter schools, people are trying to say, ?I want a custom-tailored education for my children, and I want you, as my neighbor, to pay for it.''' * ?Matthew Stewart, Parent
It is encouraging news, from Sol Stern of the Manhattan Institute, that New York City's three-year-old pilot project testing the content rich Core Knowledge Language Arts curriculum in ten low-income schools has proved so far, as the D
What grade would Harry Potter have been more likely to receive if he'd attended American public schools, an ?A?
If there's a better bigger-you-are-harder-you-fall story of late (not counting Atlanta, of course), I don't know if it will top the account in the New York Times, at least for intrigue, of one-time Gates Foundation education director Tom Vander Ark
?There is no room for discrimination of any kind in our classrooms, our communities or our state."?* ?Dean Vogel, President of the California Teachers Association
You can do a lot of things with computers nowadays: Do your homework, balance the budget, unlock the
The Rockefeller Institute has some good news to share: state tax revenue collections were up 9.3% in the first quarter of 2011, recovering nearly to the level they were at in early 2008, prior to the financial crisis. The news is not all good, however.
The results of the Wisconsin recall primaries are in, but Republicans have other reasons to be angry.
"I don't want to be just a great educator and superintendent. I want to be a great man and father and husband.'' * ?Mike Feinberg, KIPP founder
Within weeks of the release of the Common Core State ELA and math standards, textbook publishers had already launched marketing campaigns for their ?CCSS-aligned? curriculum materials. What that label really meant, exactly, was open for much debate.
Film critic Roger Ebert penned a damning critique of the too-often-used practice of giving struggling students a retold version of a more complex literary classic. He talks in particular about The Great Gatsby. The entire article is worth reading, but his most salient point is this
Here's one for you: Rosa Parks : Civil Rights Movement ::? _________ : Current Education Reform Movement [caption id="" align="alignright" width="203" caption="Photo by ElvertBarnes"][/caption]
