From Detroit Lakes-Online:
“One of the things I think is a major change that we’re going to make is measuring growth,” Franken said. “What we need are tests that are used to help teachers teach.”
Rather than one high-stakes test given in the spring, he said, he’d like to see a series of lower-stakes tests given throughout a school year. They would be similar to the Northwest Evaluation Association testing many school districts already do.
The change in testing would allow ongoing evaluation of how students are performing and tell teachers what sort of help their students need, according to Franken.
“I think that’s what parents thought No Child Left Behind was going to be,” he said. “It didn’t turn out that way at all, it turned out a very boneheaded way.”
It's good to use diagnostic instruments to inform teaching. Teachers already do that, some of it formally and some of it informally. But Franken needs to be very careful here or we'll end up using one test to accomplish two very different (and incompatible) goals: use an instrument to help teachers understand what their students know,
It wasn't just the type of slingshot or the shape of rock David used when he defeated Goliath. David's determination was steadfast, his belief system so strong, that it shaped his do or die mindset. David courageously pressed forward and defeated Goliath. But why did he win when others just as determined and just as brave do not?
This question seized my thoughts this weekend as I watched events unfold in Wisconsin and elsewhere. What helps you win when all the power and the money and legislative rule is stacked against you?
My search began. I discovered that despite the odds "Davids" win nearly one third of the time!
Two years ago, political scientist Ivan Arreguin-Toft studied every war fought in the past 200 years between strong and weak combatants. He analyzed cases where one side was as at least 1
The workers of Wisconsin are walking like Egyptians.
I am a public employee. I am an IT geek for the State of Oregon.
That’s right. I am one of those greedy bastards who would rather strike than give up our collective bargaining rights. I am a card-carrying, dues-paying member of a public sector union.
Still with me? Thanks. I promise to keep my horns and pitchfork as unobtrusive as possible.
Over the years I have been painfully aware that my counterparts in private industry earn more than I do. But some of us work for the government not
Tim Fernholz wrote an excellent article in the National Journal about the “bait and switch” of Governor Walker’s Wisconsin plan. Fernholz points out that the short-term deficit problem can be covered by debt restructuring, and that the big pieces of the bill that relate to dismantling public sector unions, control over Medicaid and creating a no-bid energy asset
And against this backdrop American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten offers a new, ‘improved’ teacher evaluation system (using kids’ test scores) and a fast-track to firing teachers. It is very hard not to say something.
The Us won’t be fairer. The draft of the evaluation system for the transformation schools may well be the blueprint for our eventual agreement with the City, and it is nothing more than the current system + subscores + test
