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Monday, August 6, 2012

How to Incentivize Teachers « Diane Ravitch's blog

How to Incentivize Teachers « Diane Ravitch's blog:


This School Took NY Times’ Advice: Carrots & Sticks for All

The New York Times was late in recommending carrots and sticks for teachers. Here is a school that is doing it already (satire alert!):
http://studentslast.blogspot.com/2012/08/grin-and-bear-it-teachers-paddled-in.html



How to Incentivize Teachers

This is what teachers work for: knowing they made a difference in the lives of students.
Have you thanked a teacher lately?
I have every single note that a parent has sent me over the years and every card that my students, once old enough to actually write (i teach pre-) has sent me years later.  I have my entire fridge covered in notes and some of my kitchen cabinets as well, along with class pictures from every year I have been in my current school.
I have one family who send me pictures of the four of their children who have passed through my class.  I have 


Which Metrics Matter in Judging a Teacher?

A reader asks a question, and I ask the teachers who follow this blog to answer him.
I suggest he read the earlier posts on the subject, but please feel free to give him your answer based on your experience:
What if metrics could be established apart from testing? Does anyone have ideas as to how metrics could be

This Made My Day

Yesterday I posted a comment by a reader who said that his teachers had saved his life and changed him for the better.
He thanked four of his teachers in the Chicago public schools and he named them.
One of the teachers he thanked just responded and thanked him!
How cool is that?
That is true psychic income!
That’s better than the shekels that the teacher might have been paid for raising test scores.
She changed his life.
Hey, Roland Fryer, what about that as an incentive to teach?
She made a difference.
When I ask myself why I spend so much time on this blog, I’ll remember this.