When Will Public Schools in Texas Close Down?
The new AYP figures are just out in Texas, and only 44% of the schools in the state made adequate yearly progress.
Next year it will be a lot worse.
By the rules set out in the NCLB law, the schools that can’t make it in a five-year frame will have to do something dramatic:
They can turn into a charter school.
They can fire all or most of the staff.
They can be taken over by a private management firm.
They can be taken over by the
About Race to the Top for Districts
With the launch of Race to the Top for school districts, the U.S. Department of Education demolishes federalism,
Congress should de-fund the Race to the Top.
Arne Duncan has absolutely no justification for foisting his unfounded, evidence-free ideas on the nation’s school
Congress should de-fund the Race to the Top.
Arne Duncan has absolutely no justification for foisting his unfounded, evidence-free ideas on the nation’s school
Anyone Want to Promote This Woman and Her School?
I just got an email from an advertising firm offering me access to a charter founder in Tucson. The assumption is that since I blog, I’m looking for story material. It is a reasonable assumption. I am always looking for story material, but I have a hard and fast rule. I never do anything suggested by a paid agent for anything or anyone. I get requests from PR people all the time to write about whatever they are promoting. I delete at once. I get solicitations of that kind and this kind every day, often several times a day. Now that I have a daily blog, I get more and more. And I will never abuse my readers’ trust by promoting anything of the sort. If I review a book–and I do and will–it’s because I happen to like it, not because I want to sell it. If I mention my own book, I’ll tell you to go check it out of the library, if you still have one.
Reading this made me think about the money that charter schools spend on marketing and advertising, which
Reading this made me think about the money that charter schools spend on marketing and advertising, which
Will Fixing Schools Cure Poverty?
The corporate reform crowd thinks that fixing schools will fix poverty.
They say that poverty is an excuse for bad teachers.
They think that closing schools where test scores are low will improve education.
They have all kinds of wrong ideas, but wrongest of all is their notion that schools by themselves will fix the
This Texas Teacher Wishes They Would Let Her Teach
They say that poverty is an excuse for bad teachers.
They think that closing schools where test scores are low will improve education.
They have all kinds of wrong ideas, but wrongest of all is their notion that schools by themselves will fix the
This Texas Teacher Wishes They Would Let Her Teach
Being a Texan, though long removed from my native soil, I always react with a start and with more than a bit of pleasure when I hear the authentic voice of a fellow Texan. We Texans don’t like to be pushed around. We like to express ourselves with vigor. Some of us care a lot about learning. Here is a Texas teacher who is fed up with the bullies who want to fence her in:
The exact same thing is happening in Texas. The scripted lesson plans actually cause me anxiety. Teaching is an ART! How dare they try to tell me to throw away all my lessons that facilitate my kids’ learning, so I can follow their “teacher” proofed script. Never!! Nev-uh!! I shut my door, and when they walk in, I fake it if I have to. My kids are so sweet; they just play along. Once the devils leave, I teach REAL reading and writing–no multiple
Does Value-Added Make Sense?
Many people assume that value-added assessment started with Race to the Top.
Value-added assessment or value-added modeling means judging teachers by how much students scores went up. Actually, it started in the 1980s, when William Sanders, an agricultural statistician in Tennessee, claimed that it was possible to measure student growth the way he was accustomed to measure the growth of plants, with the teacher as the independent variable. In Dallas, at about the same time, a group of school district statisticians developed their own model to measure teacher effectiveness. You would think that by now Tennessee and Dallas would be leading the nation, having figured out this stuff that |