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"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...

DC is expanding the use of the data from value-added evaluation models. "And the conclusions made using IMPACT as a basis will be just as flawed as the instrument they rely upon."

Because unions fundamentally fight for teachers' rights to have a say in what a democratic education in America looks like, I stand with teachers' unions.

I could not agree more with the sentiment of this piece. As someone who has chosen NOT to join the VEA, though- Lehmann is correct- I do not join because of HOW it is run, not because of what they are supposed to do. Parenting 101 would tell you that if parents are unable to provide for themselves, they cannot provide for a child- in airplanes you are supposed to put your own oxygen mask on first so you are able to take care of others around you- yet in education, we allow the "good of the children" to burn out or compromise teachers daily. I believe collective action is important, it is just not run the way I believe it could most effectively be run.

If everyone agrees that teachers are important... why do they think that demoralizing them will improve students' experience and performance in school?

KIPP is threatening to close schools in Baltimore unless they are able to resolve a dispute with the teachers' union regarding teacher pay for extended school days.

The uprising in Madison is symptomatic of a simmering rage among the nation's teachers. They have grown angry and demoralized over the past two years as attacks on their profession escalated.

Researchers at the University of Colorado have raised some concerns about the methods used by the economics team hired by the L.A. Times to apply a value-added metric to teachers' test scores. The central debate is over which variables to control for when running a value-added analysis.

Ruling: Fired D.C. teachers must be offered jobs, back wages Yeah, due process is kinda important...

Maybe DC can use her share of the profits from "Waiting for Superman" to pay for this!

Such a contrast to Virginia. Here you can be let go during your first three years in a school system with no explanation whatsoever.

GOP leaders are proposing bills to limit collective bargaining to wages and benefits. They want to exclude teachers/unions from the table when they develop education policy.

GOP leaders are proposing bills to limit collective bargaining to wages and benefits. They want to exclude teachers/unions from the table when they develop education policy.

The article introduces teacher who have made a difference and who demonstrated compassion, "care" and a genuine concern for children.

While occurring in New York, this back and forth between Cuomo and Bloomberg represents part of the larger debate about teacher evaluations.

I would LOVE to read about what this evaluation looks like!

how scary....every teacher given a pink slip....cruel and unusual punishment?

The authors conduct a study to see how teachers actually implement teaching requirements when they are enacted through policy reform by federal, state and local leaders.

Once deified, now demonized, teachers are under assault from union-busting Republicans on the right and wealthy liberals on the left. And leading the charge from all directions is a woman most famous for losing her job: the former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee.

Teachers rights, Justice, adms707

Filmmaker Spike Lee joined Education Secretary Arne Duncan in issuing a call Monday for more black men to become teachers, making their plea at the country's only all-male historically black college

Teachers grading parents-a good read

from Candy...Parenting is the hardest thing I have ever done, and I would not feel comforatble grading someone else as there are too many variables at play that I may not even know about....however, some type of voluntary request for feedback from teachers seems reasonable.

New poll captures discontent for teacher performance and public schools.