Latest News and Comment from Education

Friday, February 1, 2013

UPDATE: invest in libraries - Schools Matter: Evaluation of Gates Research on Teacher Effectiveness

Schools Matter: Evaluation of Gates Research on Teacher Effectiveness:



Quck and easy way to improve life for children of poverty: invest in libraries

A quick and easy way

Sent to This Week in Poverty, the Nation Magazine, comment on “This Week in Poverty: Time to Take On Concentrated Poverty and Education”
Original article: http://www.thenation.com/blog/172589/week-poverty-time-take-concentrated-poverty-and-education#


Missing from This Week in Poverty’s list of projects designed to alleviate the effects of poverty are projects aimed at providing more access to books. There is very consistent evidence showing that
1. children of poverty living in high-poverty areas have little access to books at home, at school, or in their communities
2. more access to interesting, comprehensible reading material means better development of literacy
3. providing access to books increases literacy development.

The major source of books for children of poverty is the library. Studies done in the US and internationally show 


Evaluation of Gates Research on Teacher Effectiveness



Gates Foundation’s MET Study
 Fails to Solve the Teacher Evaluation Challenge
Contact:
William J. Mathis, (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net
Jesse Rothstein, (510) 643-8561, rothstein@berkeley.eduZ
Jamie Horwitz, (202) 549-4921, jhdcpr@starpower.net
URL for this press release: http://tinyurl.com/a9yrxtv
BOULDER, CO (January 31, 2013) – A review by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) of a newly released and long-awaited study on teacher evaluation strongly questions the spin that has been put on the findings.
The Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, released its