Bunkum on teacher quality from the corporate reformers.
“Arghhh!” “What,” says Anne as we are driving to get some coffee at Peets this morning. “Are you having a heart attack?” Not quite. But I was listening to NPR do a story of teacher preparation programs based on a report from the National Council on Teacher Quality. Most programs, the report said, were failures. Colleges of education were sending out fools, incompetents and clowns into America’s c
A CPS principal’s resignation letter.
Inter-American’s Principal Vernita Vallez announced in November she would not renew her contract after four years at the school because she didn’t think she was able to fully do her job. She cited the top-down and constantly shifting district priorities with little principal input as the reason. In my vision about student achievement, a principal needs to be proactive and have autonomy in makin
Are Rahm and reform driving steep increase in absences and truancy at CPS?
According to CPS data obtained by Catalyst, student absence and truancy is at a three-year high. This was not information that CPS administration or the Mayor wanted Catalyst to have. This is not surprising on two counts. As a general rule, CPS does not believe in transparency and chronically stalls on FOIA requests. And, the steep increase in absence and truancy does not exactly reflect well o
6-16-14 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher
Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.: The myth of tenure for life.I received two comments from reader Joe Jeffrey this weekend regarding the suddenly hot topic of tenure. First, Joe writes: I suppose this will just convince everyone I’m a right-wing Republican, but I’ll ask it anyway: granted that teachers must be protected from unfair hi