Monday, August 30, 2010

CPS embraces online learning; charters recast New Orleans education Catalyst Notebook

Catalyst writers and editors share their perspectives, analyses and the news behind the news on improving Chicago area public schools. Our on-the-ground reports will tell you what’s happening in schools and education circles here and elsewhere. Our views will tell you what to make of it.

In the News: CPS embraces online learning; charters recast New Orleans educationTribune reporter Azam Ahmed takes a look at online learning programs in Chicago Public Schools, which supporters say are inexpensive, flexible and have the potential to revolutionize education. Critics call online learning untested. CPS now offers a battery of online programs, ranging from math and reading enrichment, to a virtual charter school with students learning almost entirely from home. Two years ago, online courses were offered in only a handful of CPS high schools. This year, all high schools will have them.

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In the News: City Colleges open admissions; Chicago State's high dropout rateSun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell decries the end of open admissions at Chicago's City Colleges, saying "would mean that many of these students could end up being denied access to higher education. If that is our intent, then things are going to get a lot worse before they get better."

Continue Reading In the News: City Colleges open admissions; Chicago State's high dropout rate »

The Magic Number for Value-Added? � The Quick and the Ed

The Magic Number for Value-Added?

by Bill Tucker

IMPACT, the Washington DC teacher evaluation program put in place by Chancellor Michelle Rhee, gives individual value-added measures a 50% weight in teacher evaluation determinations (for teachers who have value-added scores). The magic number for Race to the Top was also 50%. Los Angeles Unified committed to 30% in California’s losing Race to the Top application.

The Economic Policy Institute’s new brief, which details the many concerns with and limitations to current value-added measures, says that 50% is “unwise.” However, despite EPI’s litany of concerns with value-added, the authors, who include Diane Ravitch, Helen Ladd, and Linda Darling-Hammond, conclude that: “Used

Education Week: 'Superman' Documentary Draws Praise, Controversy

'Superman' Documentary Draws Praise, Controversy The buzz is growing around a soon-to-be-released documentary on schools by the director of 'An Inconvenient Truth.'

Texas Turns iTunes Into a Teaching Tool Teachers across Texas will be gaining a new vehicle for sharing professional-development materials and course information this fall.

Ga. Educator Named NASSP Principal of Year The National Association of Secondary School Principals named Georgia educator Wesley Taylor as its national high school principal of the year last week.

Parents Push For Diversity In New Orleans' Schools : NPR

Parents Push For Diversity In New Orleans' Schools In the city's public schools, test scores are climbing, charter schools are opening all the time, and facilities are being upgraded. But the population of the schools is overwhelmingly African-American. The head of one charter school network says it ...

One School District's Use Of Value-Added Analysis NPR's Robert Siegel talks to Donald Martin, superintendent of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School District in North Carolina, which has been using value-added analysis in evaluating its teachers for the past three years. Martin says the method is ...

What will mayoral control mean for DC Public Schools if Fenty is ousted in the Democratic primary in two weeks? QUICK Hits � The Quick and the Ed

QUICK Hits � The Quick and the Ed

QUICK Hits

by Forrest Hinton

Quick Hits is a short compilation of question-raising news stories, blog posts, and video clips that Education Sector team members are reading or viewing each day.

What will mayoral control mean for DC Public Schools if Fenty is ousted in the Democratic primary in two weeks? (Rick Hess Straight Up)
When colleges don’t measure up, who’s to blame? (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
Can the federal grant review process ever be “pure?” (Edspresso)
How will Wake County’s student reassignment plan affect the district’s prized magnet schools? (The News & Observer)

The Educated Reporter: This is why teachers tell students to check their work.

This is why teachers tell students to check their work.

Wow—what a week to be away! I’m still sweeping up vacation detritus, so I can’t talk long, and I know I am late on this. But allow me to just pop in to say that it puzzles me that a state otherwise deemed deserving of $400 million in grants would not get it because they filled in one answer wrong. Rules are rules, but, um, wow.

U.S. Secretary of Education Gives Remarks on the Next Generation of Assessments Media Advisories | U.S. Department of Education

Media Advisories | U.S. Department of Education

Media Advisories

AUGUST 31, 2010

Assistant Secretary to Visit Eugene, Oregon, to Deliver Keynote Address to Teachers and Staff, Hold Roundtable Discussion and Host a Community Conversation with Parents and Students

EUGENE, Ore.—U.S. Department of Education Assistant Secretary Thelma Meléndez de Santa Ana will deliver a keynote address at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 31, at Willamette High School welcoming back teachers and staff of Bethel School District. Later, at 1 p.m.

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Media Advisories

SEPTEMBER 02, 2010

U.S. Secretary of Education Gives Remarks on the Next Generation of Assessments to Achieve’s American Diploma Project Leadership Team

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will give remarks at Achieve’s American Diploma Project Leadership Team Meeting in Alexandria, VA at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, September 2.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: "But she's not there..."

"But she's not there..."

by Mike Klonsky

The Zombies, 1964

But it's too late to say you're sorry.

How would I know, why should I care?

Please, don't bother tryin' to find her,

she's not there. --Zombies

I didn't know why the words to this '60s pop tune kept playing in my head. Then I realized, it was all because of Nancy Joanne Vinicor, the teacher who wasn't there. Normally she would have been there, there being teaching 5th graders at Clover Avenue Elementary School in L.A. But instead, Vinicor tells the L.A. Times,

"I was out of the country this past school year as a Fulbright Teacher, a prestigious program

Duncan Praises New York’s Race to the Top Plan – ED.gov Blog

Duncan Praises New York’s Race to the Top Plan

Secretary Duncan speaks at a press confernce with New York Gov. David Paterson and other state leaders.

At the first stop on the second half of the “Courage in the Classroom” tour, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan praised New York leaders for state’s remarkably bold vision for reforming schools.

New York was one of 10 winners in the second phase of the Race to the Top program. Peer reviewers gave the state the second highest score in the competition.

Secretary Duncan made the comments at a press conference led by Gov. David Paterson and joined by leaders from across the state.

New York’s Mission: Improving Teacher Effectiveness

Secretary Duncan listens to NYSUT members discuss the union’s work to improve teacher effectiveness.

Teacher effectiveness is the most important factor in student success – and educators and state leaders are working together to improve the quality of teachers in New York.

On today’s second stop on the “Courage in the Classroom” bus tour, Secretary Duncan visited the headquarters of New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), the state’s teacher union, to hear about how districts and teachers building models to support teacher development and improve teacher evaluation.

“The common goal that we all have is that every child has an effective teacher,” NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi told the secretary, state officials, and union leaders at the event.

Members of NYSUT in six New York cities are working collaboratively with district leaders to create comprehensive models to improve the effectiveness of teachers in the classroom. The work is intended to help “strong teachers get better and struggling teachers improve,” said Karen Rock, a special education teacher in Plattsburgh, which is participating in the effort.

The U.S. Department of Education recently named the teacher-development program a finalist for a grant from the Investing in Innovation fund. With New York’s grant under the Race to the Top program, the state will be creating a new teacher evaluation program.

“We’re investing in you because of your collective leadership, your collective courage, and your willingness to take on these tough issues,” Secretary Duncan told the group.

More photos.

This Week In Education: Video: Tony Danza "Co-Teaches" English At Northeast High

Video: Tony Danza "Co-Teaches" English At Northeast High Tony Danza's classroom-based reality show debuts in about a month on A&E. This is not a joke. But just how much did Danza actually do as a "co-teacher" at Northeast High? Videogum would like to know (Tony Danza Is A Liar.)

Photo: "They Won't Even Know Their Learning" [image: image from i.huffpost.com] The WORST Education Fails Of All Time (Huffington Post)

Race to the top...of Mount Hubris | NJ.com

Race to the top...of Mount Hubris

Published: Monday, August 30, 2010, 12:44 PM Updated: Monday, August 30, 2010, 1:34 PM

Thurman Hart
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In any decent Greek tragedy, we are able to see the hero's fatal flaw. We see him rush towards his destiny, unaware that his own actions hold the seeds to his downfall. This is exactly the sort of hubris that we have seen from the Christie administration with regards to the Race to the Top grant.

Christie came to Trenton believing that anyone and everyone in that city was fatally tainted with the "political culture" that has brought New Jersey so close to ruin. Since he was untainted, he could act with great latitude, using only his own internal compass to point the right direction. While anyone who has read many of my posts here knows that I largely agree with the first part, the second part of that equation is equally as dangerous. Christie may well have a better moral and/or ethical compass than what is usually used in Trenton, but self-deception is, by definition,

Arne. Name me one teacher who asked for this. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Arne. Name me one teacher who asked for this.

by preaprez

Arne Duncan on ABC yesterday:

The tragedy in L.A. has been
the teachers — as
Randi said –

Education Research Report: Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers

Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers

by Jonathan Kantrowitz

Ω

Student test scores are not reliable indicators of teacher effectiveness, according to a new Economic Policy Institute report, Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers. The paper was co-authored by a group of distinguished education scholars and policy makers, including four former presidents of the American Educational Research Association, a former assistant U.S. Secretary of Education, EPI Research Associate Richard Rothstein, and others. The authors find that the accuracy of these analyses of student test scores is highly problematic. They argue that the practice of holding teachers accountable for their student’s test score results should be reconsidered.

“If new laws or policies specifically require that teachers be fired if their students’ test scores do not rise by a certain amount, then more teachers might well be terminated than is now the case,” the authors state. “But

New school test scores: Oregon students improve in math, reading, science | OregonLive.com

New school test scores: Oregon students improve in math, reading, science

by Betsy Hammond, The Oregonian

The share of Oregon students who can do math at grade level improves by about 2 percentage points in every grade. Still, nearly half of high school sophomores cannot write or solve math problems well enough to meet state standards.

Another ranking: Corvallis makes Top 20 list of brainiest metro areas

by Kimberly A.C. Wilson, The Oregonian

Corvallis is big brain central, but then, people there probably already knew that.

Testing Teachers — American RadioWorks — Are Test Scores the Right Measuring Stick for Teachers?

Education researchers gauge the quality of an individual teacher by looking at student test scores. If scores go up in a teacher's classroom, that's a sign the teacher is doing a good job. Education reformers are pushing schools to use test score growth as part of teacher performance evaluations. But experts are urging caution.

The Obama administration wants schools to do a better job identifying which teachers are effective in the classroom and which ones are not. The administration is offering billions of dollars through its Race to the Top initiative to get school systems to adopt new evaluation systems. To be eligible for the money, states cannot have laws that prevent teacher evaluation from being tied to student test scores. Teachers' unions fought hard for those laws; they have long opposed using test results to evaluate teachers. But some state legislatures are scrapping their bans to get federal money.

Many teachers and union leaders are upset. They say the American education system is too focused on test scores already, and measuring teachers by test scores will make the problem worse. "Using test scores to measure teacher effectiveness fosters a tendency to focus not on learning but on improving test scores," says Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the nation's most powerful teacher's unions. Weingarten says teaching is too complex to be measured by a test score alone.

On the other side of the argument are education leaders like Michelle Rhee, the public schools chancellor in Washington, D.C. "In order to have the privilege of teaching kids you have to be able to show that you can significantly move their academic achievement levels," she says. "And if you can't show that, then you need to find another profession." Rhee launched a controversial evaluation

Evaluating Student Athletes | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Evaluating Student Athletes Some students in my high school face many challenges beyond academic ones. On occasion, an athlete is among them. Since my classes are structured in a way that if students show up each day and try their best, they will pass, I seldom use an academic ...

“Are Test Scores the Right Measuring Stick for Teachers?” “Are Test Scores the Right Measuring Stick for Teachers?” is a good short piece from American RadioWorks. Thanks to Greg Toppo for the tip. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About The “Value-Added” Approach Towards Teacher Evaluation.

Book Lamp Book Lamp is a new site that lets you type in a book or author you like, and then it shows suggestions for books it thinks you might also enjoy. It seems to work well, and has a nice interface. However, even though registration is simple, you still ...

California to Receive $1.2 Billion to Support Education Jobs | U.S. Department of Education

California to Receive $1.2 Billion to Support Education Jobs

AUGUST 27, 2010

Contact:

Press Office, (202) 401-1576, press@ed.gov

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that California will receive $1.2 billion to support education jobs.

"There is a huge sense of urgency to get these funds out the door. I commend California for being the first state to submit their application and thank our team at the Department for making funds available within a matter of days," said Duncan. "These education dollars will help California keep thousands of teachers in the classroom working with our students this school year."

The $10 billion education fund will support education jobs in the 2010-11 school year and be distributed to states by a formula based on population figures. States can distribute their funding to school districts based on their own primary funding formula or districts' relative share of federal Title I funds.

Over the last two years, the Department has been able to support 300,000 education jobs through stimulus funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. At this time, 7 states have drawn down 100% of previously allocated jobs funding, while 18 states total have drawn down 80% or more. A July report from the independent Center on Education Policy found that 75% of school districts that received stimulus funds expect to cut teaching positions in the upcoming school year.

ASCD Inservice: Deficits Yield Class-Size Growth

Deficits Yield Class-Size Growth

Lean economic times mean bloated class sizes. From Natomas Unified School District in Sacramento, Cal., to Yonkers School District in New York, schools have had to make painful cuts to staffing and programming

Most parents and teachers support reduced class sizes, but research downplays the benefits of clas size reduction, except in the early grades, and with at-risk students. Critics of class-size reforms say most class-size reductions are marginal, and that teacher effectiveness is a far greater lever for change. But, can / will cash-strapped

COSTOFWAR.COM - The Cost of War

This Week In Education: Race: School Ends Student Council Quota System

Race: School Ends Student Council Quota System [image: image from cache.gawkerassets.com] Everything you ever wanted to know about Mississippi school's now-reversed affirmative action / segregation student council policy, including the student handbook, the lawsuit, and a picture of the school's ...

Quote: Post Education Writer Overstating The Problem? * [image: Quote-mark] "Blacks and whites are not engaged in some zero sumeducation contest." * * *-- TNR's Jonathan Chait on last weeks' Washington Post achievement gap story. Via Eduwonk.

Queens Teacher: Crisis in the Classroom

Crisis in the Classroom

I wonder if Randi and Arne were playing footsie under the table.

Eduwonk � Blog Archive � At The Races

At The Races

by arotherham

Races with big education implications, like Michael Bennet’s U.S. Senate race or the upcoming DC mayoral primary are pretty well known. But there are some other races with big potential education implications just a little below the radar. Here are three, who else?

Stairway to Beaven – In Florida Heather Beaven is running for Congress. She’s CEO of The Florida Endowment Foundation for Florida’s Graduates, helping at-risk