Monday, December 27, 2010

Linking evaluation to MCAS a mistake - The Boston Globe

Linking evaluation to MCAS a mistake

December 27, 2010

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MY JAW dropped on reading that a teachers union was agreeing to use standardized testing, such as MCAS, to evaluate teachers for promotion and retention (“Teachers would tie own rating to MCAS,’’ Page A1, Dec. 21). Do the policy makers of the Massachusetts Teachers Association think this is a tactic in a larger grand strategy? Were I a member of that union, I would advocate firing the leadership.

Then came the Dec. 22 editorial “A teachers union steps up’’ to pile on.

Subpar academic performance is mostly a socioeconomic ill. It will not be corrected by restrictive teaching to the test. Subpar teaching, though infrequent, is nearly always apparent soon after a teacher is hired, well within a teacher’s probationary period. An eye, an ear, and a little courage are all

The Best Resources To Learn About Finland’s Education System | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

The Best Resources To Learn About Finland’s Education System Finland’s education system is touted by many as one of the best, if not the best, in the world, and its students consistently score at or neat the top of international tests (you might also be interested in The Best Sites For Getting Some Perspective ...

NY Times Article On “Value-Added” Teacher Assessment Hurdles Emerge in Rising Effort to Rate Teachers is the headline of a New York Times article that gives a fair-to-middlin’ overview on the issue of using the value-added approach in teacher assessment. It does have some good info, though, which is ...

“Tallest Buildings In The World” “Tallest Buildings In The World” is an Associated Press interactive about…tall buildings. I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Learn About The World’s Tallest Buildings .

December’s “The Best…” Lists Here’s my monthly round-up of new “The Best…” lists I posted in December: The Best From “Interviews Of The Month” — 2010 The Best Articles & Posts On Education Policy — 2010 Best “Tweets” Of 2010 The Best “The Best…” Lists Related To Science — 2010 ...

“10 Most Incredible Volcanic Eruptions Ever Captured on Camera” 10 Most Incredible Volcanic Eruptions Ever Captured on Camera is a series of some pretty amazing photographs. Eventually, I’ll get around to posting a “The Best…” list about volcanoes. But, for now, I’m adding the best resources about volcanoes, ...

Even More iPhone Apps Mashable has just published The Ultimate iPhone Guide: 60+ Essential Resources. Out of that massive list, here are the resources I’m adding to The Best Sites For Beginning iPhone Users Like Me: Free Books is an app with 24,000 free classic. Open ...

Daily Kos: Imagine a nation with excellent schools

Imagine a nation with excellent schools

by teacherken

Imagine that 25 years ago that nation's schools were below international averages in math and sciences

Imagine that nation had large differences between schools with affluent students versus those with poorer students

Imagine that nation now has almost no difference in performance between schools with affluent students and those with poorer students

Imagine in that nation teachers are so respected

City officials continue to point students toward doomed high schools

BY RACHEL MONAHAN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Monday, December 27th 2010, 4:00 AM

Chu for News

Shariful Islam with his niece Ruthna Nasir, 17.

RELATED NEWS

When Shariful Islam went to enroll his immigrant niece in 10th grade, city officials directed him to the soon-to-close Columbus High School in the Bronx.

The 17-year-old from Bangladesh, who doesn't speak English, had unsuccessfully tried for a spot at two smaller schools.

So earlier this month Ruthna Nasir began attending Columbus - becoming one of the more than 1,300 students to enroll since August at schools the city intends to shut down for poor performance, records show.

The majority of these students - more than 1,100 - were placed in 15 schools that officials announced more than a year ago were failing students.

A lawsuit by the teachers union and the NAACP kept these schools open another year,

Chapter Four: December « City School Stories

Chapter Four: December

by fmurphy

Confessions of an Urban Principal

by Frank Murphy

In this book I offer my own story of school reform. It is a first hand account of the life of an urban elementary school principal in the era of No Child Left Behind. The text is organized into ten chapters that represent each month of the school year. On Monday and Wednesday, I post an installment of the current month’s chapter. The complete text for previous chapters can be found listed under Categories.

The names of all students and parents who are described in this story have been altered in order to protect their privacy. This is not a fictional account. The observations I share were not made from a distance. They are derived

The Answer Sheet - Who in education says 'oops'?

Who in education says 'oops'?

This was written by Larry Cuban, a former high school social studies teacher (14 years, including seven at Cardozo and Roosevelt high schools in the District), district superintendent (seven years in Arlington, Virginia) and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, where he has taught for 20 years. His latest book is "As Good As It Gets: What School Reform Brought to Austin." This appeared on his blog. By Larry Cuban The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and top policymakers have promoted and funded small urban high schools for nearly a decade. Then Bill Gates said in his 2009 Annual Letter that while these small urban high schools had accomplished much for students they had largely failed to improve academic achievement. No more big bucks for this initiative. No other foundation executives or federal/state officials, all of whom had tripped over themselves in hailing small urban high schools, said

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

by Mike Klonsky

He's dreaming of a white Christmas

"You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders." (Miss. Gov. and 2012 presidential candidate, Haley Barbour)

The spirit of giving

"From Gates, to Broad, to Bloomberg, edu-philanthropists have been pouring their time, talent and treasure into education. They tout themselves as education reformers, but, largely, their dollars are not simply good deeds. Instead,

Gray's choices
by Mike Klonsky
Broom Lady gone from D.C. but mayor's new picks don't reflect any new thinking on ed reform.
In Chicago, Mahaley, 42, led Mayor Richard M. Daley's initiative to close low-performing schools and replace them with charter-like schools...Mahaley has most recently been an executive director

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Christie's war on teachers needs some new tactics | mycentraljersey.com | MyCentralJersey.com

Christie's war on teachers needs some new tactics

DECEMBER 27, 2010

Enough already.

We get it. Everyone in the state gets it. Gov. Chris Christie hates the New Jersey Education Association. He believes the teachers union leaders are interested in nothing more than protecting their own interests, that they care little about students, taxpayers or anyone else, and that they have long been sacrificing the quality of New Jersey education at the altar of fat pay and benefits for the state's teachers.

And he wants us all to believe that he will be the one at long last to drive a stake through the NJEA demon.

Can we just move on already? Or will the governor not rest until every New Jerseyan — or at least every one of his supporters - believes that public school teachers and their luxurious taxpayer-funded lifestyles

Teacher Rankings, Once Internal, Are Now Questioned - NYTimes.com

Hurdles Emerge in Rising Effort to Rate Teachers

By SHARON OTTERMAN

Published: December 26, 2010

REPRINTS

For the past three years, Katie Ward and Melanie McIver have worked as a team at Public School 321 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, teaching a fourth-grade class. But on the reports that rank the city's teachers based on their students’ standardized test scores, Ms. Ward’s name is nowhere to be found.

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Ángel Franco/The New York Times

Melanie McIver, a teacher at Public School 321 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with Elizabeth Phillips, background, the school principal. Both women have seen issues related to the city’s system of ranking teachers, which is at the heart of a lawsuit in State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

“I feel as though I don’t exist,” she said last Monday, looking up from playing a vocabulary game with her students.

Down the hall, Deirdre Corcoran, a fifth-grade teacher, received a ranking for a year when she was out on child-care leave. In three other classrooms at this highly ranked school, fourth-grade teachers were ranked among the worst in the city at teaching math, even though their students’ average score on the state math exam was close to four, the highest score.

“If I thought they gave accurate information, I would take them more seriously,” the principal of P.S. 321, Elizabeth Phillips, said about the rankings. “But some of my best teachers have the absolute worst scores,” she said, adding that she had based her

What a waste of a perfectly good blizzard. « Fred Klonsky's blog

What a waste of a perfectly good blizzard.

by Fred Klonsky

I’m almost halfway through Winter Break.

After spending the last few days in New York with the family, we escaped what may become a major blizzard that is anticipated to drop as much as a foot and a half of snow on the city.

New York schools are closed anyway tomorrow, so there will be no Snow Day.

What a waste of a perfectly good blizzard.

As the storm followed closely behind us, Anne and I spent the day heading north up the Taconic Parkway then

Queens Teacher: Save Jamaica High!!!

Save Jamaica High!!!

by Queens Teacher

Popout

Jamaica High School's school community in Queens rallies to keep their school open.

Teach your children - Crosby Stills Nash

Daily News editorial: New PAC in town; education reform is about to heat up - LA Daily News

Daily News editorial: New PAC in town; education reform is about to heat up

Posted: 12/26/2010 08:50:27 AM PST

GIVEN the importance of California's public schools, you'd think the critical decisions that affect the education of our children would be debated and vetted with all due diligence in Sacramento. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Votes on education policy are often determined by a single question asked in back rooms: Does the CTA support it?

Apparently, the unwritten rule is that if the California Teachers Association supports an education bill, then the Democrat-controlled Legislature can pass it. The reason? Money, lots of it. CTA is one of the biggest spenders on lobbying in Sacramento in the past decade, according to the California Fair Political Practices Commission. If the powerful CTA opposes a bill - or a candidate - it has the money to make sure it goes away.

So says termed-out state Sen. Gloria Romero, who championed education reform such as the Parent Trigger Law while serving as chairwoman of the Senate's Education Committee. She should know; she was pounded

“Where you are standing now is a cliff edge…” « Failing Schools

“Where you are standing now is a cliff edge…”

DECEMBER 26, 2010

by Sabrina

“…and there’s a cold wind blowing.”

An insightful group of students from Jamaica High School and Queens Collegiate recently wrote a play about school reform in New York City, inspired by the Greek tragedy “Antigone.” The students were all set to stage their production, but administrators– worried about the implications of their powerful critique of local “reform” efforts– decided to ban the play. So much for the First Amendment…

You can read reports of the situation at The Huffington Post and on The Answer Sheet. Full text of the play is included below.

Declassified: Struggle for Existence (We Used to Eat Lunch Together)

Conceived of by students from Jamaica High School and Queens Collegiate High School

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Monday, December 27, 2010