While debate rages in the education world about how to measure effective teaching - or whether it is even possible to do so - research funded by a prominent advocate of data-driven analysis has found that growth in annual student test scores is a reliable sign of a good teacher.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation reported that and other preliminary findings Friday from a $45 million study of teacher effectiveness in several cities.
"In every grade and subject we studied, a teacher's past success in raising student achievement on state tests was one of the strongest predictors of his or her ability to do it again," said Vicki Phillips, who oversees elementary and secondary education grants for the foundation.
The findings arrive as state and local officials across the country are retooling teacher evaluation in an effort to make the annual ratings of teachers more objective than
Children of poverty and access to books
Sent to the Guardian, UK, Dec. 10, 2010
American scores on an international test of reading (the PISA) show exactly the same thing that UK scores show: Children of poverty don't read very well ("Half of pupils on free school meals can't read," Dec. 10).American students in schools with few children of poverty scored near the top of the world, those in schools with mostly high poverty children scored near the bottom of all countries tested.
Similar to the UK results, our research also shows that middle class English language learners often do better
The rhetoric about our decades-long drunken spending spree just won’t stop, nor will the rhetoric that the money is all gone. All of it. Nothin’ left. We spent it all. We taxed ourselves to the limit and those damn teachers unions and public schools just took it all and left us with the bill. It’s gone! all gone!
Here are some recent quotes/comments from pundits who’ve done little analytically but to offer a few absurd back of the napkin explanations for why they believe that a) we’ve been on a drunken spending spree and b) it’s all gone!
Andy Rotherham in Time:
the golden age of school spending
Like everyone else who does education for a living, I read that Michelle Rhee is launching a new national advocacy organization, Students First. And after checking out the site and hearing how she articulates its purpose, I see some reasons to feel hopeful -- and many more reasons to feel deeply concerned.
First, the good news: It's hard to argue with Rhee's four "we believe" statements for the organization. Who doesn't believe all children deserve great teachers? Who would argue with the idea that students should not need luck to get a good education? Why not start allocating public dollars where they can make the biggest difference? And who would deny the need for more parental involvement and increased efforts to engage the entire community? So let's all hop on the Rhee express, right? Well, maybe.
It's also clear Ms. Rhee understands which advocacy efforts have been most successful and what sort of work we might therefore expect from Students First: "From the National Rifle Association to
Too much valuable instruction time is taken away from teaching meaningful tasks that could lead to more independent lives, the tests are not respectful of the students and they do not accurately reflect the goals of the students’ Individual Educational Plans, parents and educators said.
So say Maryland parents and educators unhappy with a test called the Alt-MSA, which assesses severely disabled kids and takes too much valuable time away from instruction. They claim that the IEP process ensures
When a student asks for a bathroom pass, I always told my kids, the proper answer is "of course." If there was a reason why I could not issue a pass at a certain time, I owed the students a respectful explanation. Because the system could not assess disciplinary consequences on chronically disruptive students, I would acknowledge, the entire school remained in perpetual
From the Wall Street Journal's SmartMoney series, no less:
2. Our teachers aren’t certified.
3. Plus, they keep quitting.
4. Students with disabilities need not apply.
• To request a refund of a student fee in San Diego, call the district’s legal office at 619-725-5630.
• To report a fee charged in violation of the Constitution, call The Watchdog at 619-293-2275 or email watchdog@uniontrib.com
California will crack down on myriad illegal school fees charged to students taking part in such programs as art, athletics, band, cheer and gym if a landmark lawsuit settlement announced Thursday is approved.
The agreement hinges on court approval and legislation that would require a standard complaint process for students, annual audits of such fees, fines for districts for charging them illegally, and resolution for families within 30 days of any illegal charges.
The state Constitution requires a free education be available to children. A 1984 Supreme Court ruling determined that extracurricular activities are an extension of that promise. Even so,
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