How do successful school systems treat teachers? - Ed Thoughts
The release of two important reports led me to ask this question today.
The National Education Policy Center shared a brief that reviews available research on several different aspects of teacher evaluation and recommends a comprehensive approach to teacher evaluation. If different measures, like observation (by peers and principals), teacher self-reports, student surveys, classroom artifacts, portfolios, and value-added assessment are used, then the weaknesses of one measure can be offset by the strengths of another.
Meanwhile, the much-anticipated PISA rankings came out, revealing that America is (still) in the "middle of the pack" of international rankings of 15-year-old performance in reading, science, and math. Putting anxious hand-
Whurr (not) number one? - Ed Thoughts
I had to snicker when I read Arne Duncan's response to the PISA rankings in the Washington Post.
For me, it's a massive wake-up call. Have we ever been satisfied as Americans being average in anything? Is that our aspiration? Our goal should be absolutely to lead the world in education.
First of all, we've been in the middle of these kinds of rankings for a few years now; how is this surprising?
And is it just me, or does he kind of sound like a dude whose fantasy football team isn't doing as well as he'd like?
I guess I just don't get the fascination with rankings, especially in situations like these where we're not sure that we're making a strictly apples-to-apples comparison among the types of students taking the test
