Be A Teacher - Read A Script, Follow Orders, Raise Test Scores Or Be Fired!
What a joke this is:With so much teacher bashing, who in the world would want to teach? Seeking to combat such sentiments, the Department of Education — in partnership with the Advertising Council, Microsoft, State Farm Insurance, Teach for America, the nation’s two largest teachers’ unions and several other educational groups — is unveiling a public service campaign this week aimed at recruiting
More Hackery From Merryl Tisch
Tisch urges rethinking of network system, says it's sustainable but rethink way to include students w special needs and Eng lang learners— Beth Fertig (@bethfertig) November 21, 2013Last week, here's what she said:The next mayor should “reconsider” the current system of school-support networks, State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch said Monday, adding her voice to a chorus of critics – in
Here's A Shael Polakow-Suransky Proposal I Can Agree With
Wow - sometimes Shael says stuff that makes sense:A top city education official on Thursday suggested a relatively inexpensive way to boost the number of high school students who go to college – pay their application fee. Chief Academic Officer Shael Polakow-Suransky said the department is considering paying the $65 application fee for high school students applying to the City University of New Yo
The Common Core Standards And The Common Core Tests Go Hand In Hand
Peter Greene at Ed Week asks if the Common Core standards can be decoupled from the tests and concludes no, they cannot:A recent recurring refrain around and about the comments sections is the notion that the Common Core standards are, in and of themselves, quite fine, and if we could just uncouple them from the testing and implementation regimens, all will be well. The standards themselves are an
It's Not How Many Tests, It's The Stakes Attached To Them
DFER Joe Williams and TNTP's Tim Daly write in the Daily News over the absurdity of the teachers unions protesting the test score-based teacher evaluation system that they helped put together and push into law: Lately, student testing has become everyone’s favorite political punching bag. Just this week, New York State United Teachers, the state’s powerful teachers union, issued a statement decryi
How Would An Opt-In Law On InBloom Work?
From the Times Union:On Wednesday, the ire of teachers, parents and several state legislators was directed at another aspect of the increasingly controversial federal Race to the Top initiative and its implementation in New York: The creation of a vast trove of student data that the state Education Department wants to build in collaboration with a grant-funded nonprofit firm.In an almost daylong h
UFT Leadership Defends The ADVANCE Teacher Evaluation System Once Again
Excellent report from James Eterno from yesterday's Delegate's Assembly: No speakers were permitted to oppose a Unity Caucus resolution reinforced the UFT's support for the evaluation law. However, the UFT is calling for a moratorium on using the results of high stakes tests for teacher evaluations until alterations to the local portion of the Measures of Student Learning portion of the system ca
Assembly Members Take It To InBloom
InBloom is in trouble:Lots of questions cropped up about the protection of the data and on Wednesday the curiosity turned to outright ire against the Atlanta-based grant-funded non-profit firm that is organizing and maintaining the data, inBloom.Specifically, members of the Assembly Education Committee said they were furious that representatives of the organization declined to appear before them a
11-20-13 Perdido Street School
Perdido Street School: How Much Have Districts Spent On Race To The Top Mandates?A commenter at the Newsday article on Diane Ravitch writes the following:The greatest scam was Andy Cuomo and Obama holding a gun to our head about the $700 million Federal funding and other state aid as well. Cuomo painted the teachers' union as the greedy obstructionists depriving children of their right to learn. T