Ineffective Forever
This old piece of reformster wisdom has been popping up again in the wake of Vergara.I've explained this before, but let me lay out for you once again how the new interpretation of "ineffective" or "low-performing" guarantees that there will always be an endless supply of ineffective teachers.The new definition of "ineffective teacher" is "teacher whose students
Let's (Not) Pay Teachers More
In education reformster land, words often mean the opposite of what they say. So, for instance, "Let's protect excellent teachers" actually means "Let's fix it so that any teachers can be fired at any time."But a popular new opposites-land reformster refrain is "We need to pay teachers more."It has been featured in a many StudentsFirst campaigns (including a crowdsour
Are Reformsters Under Attack?
I have generally avoided picking on quotes from That Woman that appear in her joint blogventure with Jack Schneider, mostly because I think it's a worthy experiment that deserves some place to breathe. But recently she dropped an extraordinary quote that I can't let pass. It happened in a discussion of unions, specifically discussing the need for bridge-building if any collaboration is going to oc
6-11-14 Curmudgucation
CURMUDGUCATION: StudentsFirst Cynicism Truly BoundlessAn alert reader shared with me an email she received with the subject line "Demand Better Compensation for Teachers." Turns out, it's just further proof of how cynical the reformsters at StudentsFirst are these days.The email was generated by the site Greatergood.com, a website of the kickstarter crowdsourcing variety, aimed specifica