- If it were up to Arne Duncan, teachers would make between $60,000 and $150,000 a year—but there’s a catch. To do that, we have to “shift away from an industrial-era blue-collar model of compensation” to one that rewards “effectiveness and performance.”
- To some, the hard-line reforms of governors like Scott Walker and Rick Scott are alienating—a porridge too cold. To others, the collaborative changes in states like Illinois lack teeth—a porridge too hot. But some say that rookie GOP governors Susana Martinez (New Mexico) and Brian Sandoval (Nevada) are providing a porridge just right, offering compromise and communication, while still driving through some strong legislative changes. Could one of them be America’s next Ed Reform Idol?
- Mike Antonucci delivers a smart response to the anti-testing banners waved at last weekend’s Save Our Schools March: Yes, he says, there are schools that test too much. And yes, “Calling a school successful because of high reading and math scores on a standardized test may be a flawed method of evaluation. But is it any more flawed than calling a school successful ‘because we say so’?”
- Protecting against inappropriate teacher-student interaction is important. But Missouri’s newly passed SB54—which bans teacher-student communication on social-networking sites that allow for private interaction—has seriously stifled the state’s potential for tech-based innovations like virtual schooling or digital dropboxes. Baby, meet bathwater.
- First, there was Teach For All. Now another group is building off the Teach For America model, this one of the entrepreneurial mindset. This week, Venture For America (VFA) opened its application process. VFA will place fellows at start-ups in Detroit, New Orleans, and Providence for two years, creating job growth and aiding the economies of failing cities.
- Is it really that teachers are paid too little, or that some teachers are paid too little? Andy Rotherham explains.
- With all this debt-ceiling talk, you might have missed some of the other news out of the federal government. Idaho got the go-ahead to keep its AYP proficiency targets the same for a third year in a row. (Which is convenient, because state supe Tom Luna has already informed the USDOE that he has no intention of continuing to follow NCLB accountability provisions.)
- Reason #5,489 why ESEA won’t be reauthorized anytime soon: It looks like Duncan way oversold the number of schools that would be labeled as failing this year under AYP. While some key large states (including TX and CA) still need to report, the results thus far are far from an 82 percent failure rate.
