Group items tagged

"Given the experience to date with an overwhelming focus on student achievement scores as a basis for high-stakes decisions, policymakers would do well to pause and carefully examine the issues that make teacher assessment so complex before implementing an assessment plan. To facilitate such examination, this brief reviews credible research exploring: the feasibility of combining formative assessment (a basis for professional growth) and summative assessment (a basis for high-stakes decisions like dismissal); the various tools that might be used to gather evidence of teacher effectiveness; and the various stakeholders who might play a role in a teacher assessment system. It also offers a brief overview of successful exemplars."

Teacher evaluation is a big topic of our upcoming negotiations. What concerns me most is that some administrators don't complete the triennial evaluations now; how are they going to complete annual evaluations on all staff? So many questions...

"For beyond the shrinkage of school curriculums to fit the narrow boundaries of annual tests, along with the disappearance of recess and play, research in poorer schools has uncovered another most tragic outcome to high stakes testing: the effective elimination of care as the ethos that has bound together teacher and child for longer than there have been schools in America."

Those who can afford to pay for all private K-12 and college expenses for their children may not care if the Federal government is involved in our education system. All the rest of the country needs to take heed and acknowledge the need for continued and expanded federal involvement. Without sounding flippant... do you suppose that those who might be leading the charge to get the Federal government out of education and make draconian cuts in social programs under the guise that tax burdens are too high and individualism trumps social justice are the same millionaires and billionaires who fund the tea party et al.? Sadly, the "regular folk" who are falling for that rhetoric do not recognize that they are paving their own way to..... [let's just say poverty].

Schwartz makes a very VALUED POINT! When will stop debating and really address the issue at HAND. The future of our children are at STAKE here!! He makes 5 points: 1. Stop talking and writing 2. Read and listen to opposing and alternative viewpoints from diverse groups of stakeholders including teachers, students, parents, communities other than your own, union leaders, business leaders, administrators, superintendents, et. al. 3. Process it all in continued silence. This is not about writing comments to a blog post or releasing a study to counter what that other study you read found or even a quick retort with your rehearsed line. Really take it in and think about where it fits within your framework for what it's going to take to help our teachers help our students. 4. Think about how your experiences as a student and perhaps your experiences as a parent of a student have shaped and even biased your views on what our schools need. 5. Resume your writing and speaking being mindful to take time-outs to listen and think.

This fits into our Week 11 --- really thinking. This opinion piece states exactly how I feel right now....and I bet a bunch of others, as well.

"It was found that the state test has far-reaching effects on teaching, curriculum, school climate, students, parents, and school administration. The ideology of testing as a positive reform idea and the practice of testing as a constant and tangible threat, form the two poles of an experiential field that these educators encounter as figure and ground. The avoidance of failure and the threat of failure push these educators toward an ideological commitment to testing."