Latest News and Comment from Education

Friday, January 27, 2012

Schools Matter: How do you determine teacher effectiveness?

Schools Matter: How do you determine teacher effectiveness?:

How do you determine teacher effectiveness?

How do you determine teacher effectiveness?
Sent to USA Today, Jan. 26, 2012

“States weaken tenure rights for teachers” (Jan. 25) emphasizes the importance of evaluating teacher effectiveness.
A major problem is that these evaluations are often based on students gains on standardized tests, called “value-added” measures.
A number of studies have shown that value-added measures are very unstable: Teachers' ratings based on

Tennessee State Board Set to Further Demoralize Teachers and Open the Floodgates to New Lawsuits

The commentary below was provided Knoxville, TN educators who prefer (for now) to remain anonymous:

In light of the planned action by the State Board of Education (download pdf from state website here complete with red ink), Knox County educators are bracing for the next shoe to fall from the Haslam/McIntyre(Broad)/Huffman nexus of destabilization, deprofessionalization, and corporatization of public education in the state of Tennessee.

Already, teachers in Knoxville schools administered by quislings from McIntyre’s Leadership Academy are reporting increasingly Orwellian levels of administrative surveillance regarding teacher activities both on and off