How do successful school systems treat teachers? - Ed Thoughts

How do successful school systems treat teachers? - Ed Thoughts

How do successful school systems treat teachers? - Ed Thoughts

by Sabrina

The release of two important reports led me to ask this question today.

The National Education Policy Center shared a brief that reviews available research on several different aspects of teacher evaluation and recommends a comprehensive approach to teacher evaluation. If different measures, like observation (by peers and principals), teacher self-reports, student surveys, classroom artifacts, portfolios, and value-added assessment are used, then the weaknesses of one measure can be offset by the strengths of another.

Meanwhile, the much-anticipated PISA rankings came out, revealing that America is (still) in the "middle of the pack" of international rankings of 15-year-old performance in reading, science, and math. Putting anxious hand-

Whurr (not) number one? - Ed Thoughts

by Sabrina

I had to snicker when I read Arne Duncan's response to the PISA rankings in the Washington Post.

For me, it's a massive wake-up call. Have we ever been satisfied as Americans being average in anything? Is that our aspiration? Our goal should be absolutely to lead the world in education.

First of all, we've been in the middle of these kinds of rankings for a few years now; how is this surprising?

And is it just me, or does he kind of sound like a dude whose fantasy football team isn't doing as well as he'd like?

I guess I just don't get the fascination with rankings, especially in situations like these where we're not sure that we're making a strictly apples-to-apples comparison among the types of students taking the test

Another NY wealthy friend of Michael Bloomberg wanted a school. Now it’s closing. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Another NY wealthy friend of Michael Bloomberg wanted a school. Now it’s closing. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Another NY wealthy friend of Michael Bloomberg wanted a school. Now it’s closing. [image: Time 100 2006 gala, Michael Bloomberg.] Bloomberg is not a good student. Five years ago Michael Bloomberg took a community high school building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, cut it in half, and handed one half of it over to a wealthy ...

IEA’s Swanson responds to The Boss. Earlier today I reported on a legislative committee established by Boss Madigan. The House Education Reform Committee which is made up by legislators who received large checks from a *Superman* political action committee named *Stand for Children.* ...

Early and often. Chicago Mayor William Thompson. A while back I began posting election items under the banner of “Early and often.” For those folks from outside of the Chicagoland area, the phrase “early and often” has its roots in Chicago electoral Machine ...

UPR on Strike Once More « occupy california

UPR on Strike Once More « occupy california

UPR on Strike Once More

by *

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Students at the University of Puerto Rico are on strike again. Last spring, students shut down all but one campus in the UPR system for 2 months to fight the $800 fee increase.

Translator’s background note: Even though the UPR students have organized referendums, occupations, and demos against the $800 fee due January all throughout this fall, the administration is going forward with the fee. So students held an assembly and decided on a 48-hour strike for today. Attempts at repression have been at a high these past few weeks, with the university even taking down the campus’s security gates the day before the strike. This is a communique about today written from within the barricades.

It’s worth noting this was released at 8:00 am and much more has happened since, including an altercation at the gates where a student was detained. Also counter-demos have materialized with support from the PNP, the

Local News | ACLU: Aberdeen school district failed to stop bullying | Seattle Times Newspaper

Local News | ACLU: Aberdeen school district failed to stop bullying | Seattle Times Newspaper

ACLU: Aberdeen school district failed to stop bullying

A 19-year-old graduate of Aberdeen High School is suing the school district there, saying officials did nothing to keep him from being bullied.

By The Associated Press

A 19-year-old graduate of Aberdeen High School is suing the school district there, saying officials did nothing to keep him from being bullied.

Russell Dickerson III says he was subject to repeated bullying because he's black and because of his perceived sexual orientation.

He says that in one of the incidents three students pushed him down and smashed an egg on his head. He says that in 2007 students in the district created a website mocking him and posting threatening and racist comments.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, which is representing Dickerson, says the district did nothing to stop the harassment even after a judge issued a no-contact order between Dickerson and one of

The Answer Sheet - Hysteria over PISA misses the point

The Answer Sheet - Hysteria over PISA misses the point

Hysteria over PISA misses the point

Finland is so over. Now it’s all about Shanghai. The 2009 results released today from the Program for International Student Assessment, known as PISA, caused consternation in the United States today when American students racked up generally average scores in reading, science and math. Where they’ve been for years. Today’s big news: Students from Shanghai, participating for the first time in the program, came out on top in all three areas out of about 65 countries and other education systems. Here come the Chinese, or, rather, the Shanghainese.

Arabic Teacher Supports Duncan at Tomorrow’s Foreign Language Summit – ED.gov Blog

Arabic Teacher Supports Duncan at Tomorrow’s Foreign Language Summit – ED.gov Blog

Arabic Teacher Supports Duncan at Tomorrow’s Foreign Language Summit

Steven Berbeco visits a high school in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, as part of a State Department-funded teacher exchange in February, 2010.

Although Arabs represent only one percent of my city’s population, and a tenth of a percent nationally, it is important that my students in Boston learn Arabic, both for our collective national security and for them as future leaders.

As a nation, we are unprepared to meet the sudden and pressing need for citizens familiar with Arabic. Our education system also lacks the infrastructure to produce a generation of culturally and linguistically literate graduates of Arabic. The field of high school Arabic is still so new that we have had to create our own curriculum and develop our own resources to train new teachers. At a time when students are eager to make sense of global events, we as teachers find ourselves pressed to develop a framework for our students to become responsible global citizens.

Just as the launch of Sputnik marked a sea change in our country’s education system, the recent and on-going events in the Middle East have influenced the support for less commonly taught languages like Arabic, with a substantial increase in funding for both public schools and private programs.

Charlestown High School has benefited from this assistance, though it often surprises people to learn who has been studying Arabic at our school for the past six years. Few of our students are Muslim, and fewer still come from Arabic-speaking homes. Our students are inner-city kids and come from some of our nation’s most challenging neighborhoods.

The core ethic behind our program is that students will rise to the level of expectation set for them, and even students who struggle to pass our state assessment test can succeed in demanding classes. As a society we believe that students can and should join the global economy, and at our school we are training them to be leaders.

I am excited by the Secretary’s recent participation in the CIA Foreign Language Summit. Foreign language study is a critical part of education in the 21st century, and the Secretary’s participation in an inter-agency conference signals the current administration’s focus on cooperation and collaboration in this area, as does President Obama’s Blueprint for Reform.

When schools adopt programs in Arabic, Chinese, Urdu, or another critically needed language, they are affirming the role of languages in a well-rounded education as well as the importance of including students in international dialogue. I am proud to be part of this effort, and I look forward to continuing innovations in teaching, curriculum, and professional support.

Steven Berbeco, New England Regional Teacher Leadership Initiative
Steven Berbeco teaches Arabic at Charlestown High School in Boston, Massachusetts. He is 2008-2009 Classroom Teaching Fellow at the U.S. Department of Education.

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This entry was written by jjohnson, posted on December 7, 2010 at 5:37 pm, filed under Headlines, News and tagged Teaching Ambassador Fellows. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Trackbacks are closed, but you can post a comment.

« ED Staff Give to Charity, with a Boost from Secretary Duncan

Schools Matter: The Misguided and Wasteful Obsession with Teacher Evaluation

Schools Matter: The Misguided and Wasteful Obsession with Teacher Evaluation

The Misguided and Wasteful Obsession with Teacher Evaluation

by skrashen

The Misguided and Wasteful Obsession with Teacher Evaluation:

Comment posted on The Answer Sheet, Washington Post, Dec 7

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/assessing-teachers-without-fet.html

We are always wise to "embrace teacher quality as a goal" in general, but the current obsession with teacher quality is misguided. The intensive focus on teacher quality, teacher evaluation, and teacher education confirms the false assumption that there is something seriously wrong with teachers in the US today. There is no evidence this is so. In fact, there is strong evidence suggesting that our teachers are doing a very good job: When we control for poverty, our students score at the top of the world on international tests.

The claim that teacher quality is the main determinant of student success is based on extrapolations from Hanushek's data, not from real teachers in real classrooms. In contrast, there is overwhelming evidence that poverty IS the problem. Our major financial efforts now should go toward protecting children from the effects of

Good news for Detroit teachers, parents and students!!! Robert Bobb’s actions found illegal | Dailycensored.com

Good news for Detroit teachers, parents and students!!! Robert Bobb’s actions found illegal | Dailycensored.com

Good news for Detroit teachers, parents and students!!! Robert Bobb’s actions found illegal

by Danny Weil

Picture of Robert Bobb

COURT DECLARES EMERGENCY FINANCIAL MANAGER’S TAKEOVER OF DETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOLS ILLEGAL

BAMN (By Any Means Necessary) and Detroit School Board Score Major Legal Victory

Against Market-Based Corporate Education Models

Ruling comes on the eve of crucial election in Detroit Federation of Teachers

The Wayne County Circuit Court held today that Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb has violated the law for the last 20 months by illegally taking control over the academic affairs of the Detroit Public Schools.

The Court held that Bobb had no legal authority to seize that power. It also declared that he had no educational expertise or experience — that “all [Bobb’s] study in education has emanated from unvetted sources, who may

Schools Matter: Toast: Republicans Offer Obama Cover for Capitulation

Schools Matter: Toast: Republicans Offer Obama Cover for Capitulation

Toast: Republicans Offer Obama Cover for Capitulation

by Jim Horn

It was quite a scene, the Republican senators lined up one after the other at the microphone, each giving full support for the President's decision to cave in on their demands. Then to the microphone comes the President, himself, now looking tough in the face of reporters and his one-time base of supporters. But he has never had trouble talking tough to progressives or to the "professional left" as his mouthpieces call Dems with principles.

The President's "hostage" metaphor was apt, as he noted that he decided to negotiate when it was clear that we, the hostages, were going to get hurt. What he did not say, and what he seems incapable of accepting, is that he left the door unlocked with us hostages bound and gagged on the bed to await our assailants. Nor will he admit he has had the bag full of money waiting for the Republican hostage takers for a long time, just waiting for them to make their move.

This was the Johnson moment for Obama. The corruption and complicity is writ large, and no one with a brain

Help Build a Bridge for Essential Schools | Taking Note

Help Build a Bridge for Essential Schools | Taking Note

Help Build a Bridge for Essential Schools

by AMANDA on 07. DEC, 2010 in MICHELLE RHEE, INNOVATION, JOEL KLEIN, MEDIA, TEACHING

Every day seems to bring more interesting news in the world of public education: a new alliance of school districts and charters schools, scores on PISA, a waiver from the state department of education to allow Cathy Black to succeed Joel Klein in New York City, a front page story in the New York Times about Bill Gates’ support for videotaping teachers and Michelle Rhee’s launch of Students First.

Perhaps all of these developments deserve our attention, even though none can claim impact—they’re all works in progress, even the semi-good news about small increases by US students on the international PISA results. I expect to be blogging about them down the road.

If you are looking for positive impact on the lives and learning of children, I suggest theCoalition of Essential Schools, that wonderfully loose organization created in 1984 by the late Ted Sizer, a true giant in education.

Whether it’s the network of like-minded teachers who have been supporting each other for years and years, sharing ideas, techniques, successes and failures, or wildly successful

Parents and Students as Citizens in their own Schools | Lefty Parent

Parents and Students as Citizens in their own Schools | Lefty Parent

Parents & Students as Citizens in their own Schools

by Cooper Zale

Today’s Los Angeles Times piece, “Parents hope to force sweeping changes at Compton school”, highlights a dysfunctional educational venue, McKinley Elementary School in Compton, and a controversial effort by parents to turn it around. Controversial because, without the knowledge of school staff or the school board, parents quietly took the radical action of circulating a petition, based on a new California law, to bring a charter company in to take over running the school. A school dysfunctional perhaps because of a lack of a good governance model that could have kept parents, teachers and

solidaridad: Vielka McFarlane and Ben Austin orchestrate hostile takeover in Compton

solidaridad: Vielka McFarlane and Ben Austin orchestrate hostile takeover in Compton

Vielka McFarlane and Ben Austin orchestrate hostile takeover in Compton

by Robert D. Skeels * rdsathene

"We don't want to focus on how the history of the country has been checkered but on how do we dress for success..." — historical revisionist and Celerity CEO Vielka McFarlane on why she insists on hiding the history of Emmett Till's brutal murder at the hands of white supremacists.


First read Teresa Watanabe and Howard Blume's obsequious homage to the corporate school privatizers in this story. Here's my quick response:

Big news! Ben Austin helps the wealthy Vielka McFarlane, owner of the Celerity corporate charter-voucher chain, increase her market share and revenue stream. Too bad for the community. For anyone deluded enough think that Ben Austin cares about anyone's kids, try taking a look at Part VII of his 501c3's 990 form.

Austin's quote about transferring power to the parents is laughable considering that parents are POWERLESS over CMO charters -- maybe the parents should have asked how much decision making power they would have once the school was seized by McFarlane and her board. Of

Waiting for super money? Rhee’s got a brand new bag | Joe Sacramento

Waiting for super money? Rhee’s got a brand new bag | Joe Sacramento

Waiting for super money? Rhee’s got a brand new bag

By Citizen Joe Dec 6th, 2010 | No Reader comments yet

Michelle Rhee has launched a members only club purportedly designed to– you guessed it–put America’s children first. The goal of the club? To raise $1 BILLION. What will she do with $1B, you ask? Fund truancy programs, train parents how to be accountable, create mentor programs for families, partner with faith-based organizations, pro sports teams, and non profits, right? No, silly. She will spend it on “supporting reform-minded candidates.” In other words, she will create an army of zombie Rheebots, and at a day and hour of her choosing…

Supporting candidates. How original! Enterprising! American! If you can’t do the job yourself, pay someone else to do it. If you can’t persuade educators to get on board with your program, then rheech out to pay politicians and lawmakers to force it down their throats with legislation. Hoffa-esque!

Let’s rheehash Rhee’s formula: take from the rich, get people elected who agrhee with your politics, collect the rheeturn favor later. Tom DeLay would be proud. Well, maybe not. That strategy didn’t exactly turn out to well for him. In fact when he funneled

Hechinger Report | How do great school cultures come about? A Q&A with Samuel Casey Carter

Hechinger Report | How do great school cultures come about? A Q&A with Samuel Casey Carter

How do great school cultures come about? A Q&A with Samuel Casey Carter

by Beth Hawkins

Samuel Casey Carter

When education policymakers look at schools that get great results despite a concentration of poverty or other impediments, they often identify a strong culture as one of the keys to a program’s success.

Indeed, recently my MinnPost blog has been home to stories about odds-busting schools where professionalism and discipline are emphasized, where all students wear coats and ties and recite a college-bound credo every morning and even one school where all classroom whiteboards are decorated identically.

Each of those schools was able to forge a strong culture either because it’s a young charter blessed with a faculty that shares a single vision, or was a mainline public school that was able to re-staff from top to bottom

Michelle Rhee discusses ambitions with Bee editorial board - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Michelle Rhee discusses ambitions with Bee editorial board - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Michelle Rhee discusses ambitions with Bee editorial board

by lrosenhall@sacbee.com (Laurel Rosenhall)

Michelle Rhee talked about her support for mayoral control of schools, her dislike of school district policies that require teacher layoffs be done by seniority and some of the ambitions for her new education lobbying organization during an hour-long meeting with The Sacramento Bee's editorial board this morning.

Michelle Rhee, until recently chancellor of the D.C. school system, announced her new project, StudentsFirst, on a pretaped Oprah Winfrey show aired Monday.

NJEA recommends streamlined process for dismissing tenured teachers | NJ.com

NJEA recommends streamlined process for dismissing tenured teachers | NJ.com

NJEA recommends streamlined process for dismissing tenured teachers

Published: Tuesday, December 07, 2010, 1:37 PM Updated: Tuesday, December 07, 2010, 2:32 PM

Jeanette Rundquist/The Star-Ledger
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Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-LedgerNJEA President Barbara Keshishian stands in the doorway of the Governor's Office at the Statehouse in an April 2010 photo.

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TRENTON — The New Jersey Education Association today released what the union called its recommendations for education reform, including streamlining the process for dismissing tenured teachers.

The NJEA, the state's largest teacher's union, also took a swipe at Gov. Chris Christie — who union President Barbara Keshishian said earlier this year ignored union reform proposals — and at politicians with "bumper-sticker slogans to make their case."

"It's time to set the record straight," Keshishian said at a press conference at NJEA headquarters in Trenton. "Our members ... are seasoned educators, who understand how students learn, and what it takes to help them succeed."

The proposal includes streamlining the tenure charge process by having cases heard by arbitrators