L.A.’s teacher-rating firestorm blows east
By Katy Murphy
Thursday, October 21st, 2010 at 1:47 pm in students, teachers
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As soon as tomorrow, 12 news agencies could have the names and effectiveness ratings of 12,000 teachers from New York City’s public schools, the Washington Post reports.
The United Federation Of Teachers plans to file a lawsuit in state court to block the release of the data. The ratings in question are based on the average progress a teacher’s students made on standardized tests during the course of a school year. In edu-speak, they’re called “value-added” assessments.
It’s not clear from the Post story how many years of data were included in the New York City school district’s analysis. As researchers and statisticians note, these effectiveness ratings tend to vary wildly from year to year because the sample size — especially for elementary school teachers — is so small (20 to 30-some students). Read the rest of this entry »
On anniversary of hills fire, kids raise money to repair memorial
By Katy Murphy
Thursday, October 21st, 2010 at 3:01 pm in community, private schools, students
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Fourth-graders at Bentley School, upset by a recent Tribune report of theft from the Oakland hills firestorm memorial, raised $350 this week through a bake sale to restore it.