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Schools and school systems throughout the nation are increasingly experimenting with using various instructional technologies to improve productivity and decrease costs, but evidence on both the effectiveness and the costs of education technology is limited. A recent report published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute sets out to describe "the size and range of the critical cost drivers for online schools in comparison to traditional brick-and-mortar schools" (p. 2). The study divides online learning into two broad categories-virtual schools and blended-learning schools-and, based on data from 50 experts, reports that "the average overall per-pupil costs of both models are significantly lower than the $10,000 national average for traditional brick-and-mortar schools" (p. 1). These findings, however, are undermined by a general lack of clarity about the models being studied and problematic data and methods. While the report addresses an important topic, the utility of its cost estimates are limited. Of more value are the qualitative findings about how various cost drivers affect the overall costs of online learning. The study would be more useful if it provided a rigorous analysis of a set of well-defined promising models of online learning as the basis for its cost estimates.  

As student learning is the primary goal of teaching, it seems like common sense to evaluate teachers based on how much their students gain on state standardized tests. Indeed, many states have adopted this idea in response to federal incentives tied to much-needed funding. However, previous experience is not promising. Recently evaluated experiments in Tennessee and New York did not improve achievement when teachers were evaluated and rewarded based on student test scores. In the District of Columbia, contrary to expectations, reading scores on national tests dropped and achievement gaps grew after a new test-based teacher-evaluation system was installed. In Portugal, a study of test-based merit pay attributed score declines to the negative effects of teacher competition, leading to less collaboration and sharing of knowledge. I was once bullish on the idea of using "value-added methods" for assessing teacher effectiveness. I have since realized that these measures, while valuable for large-scale studies, are seriously flawed for evaluating individual teachers, and that rigorous, ongoing assessment by teaching experts serves everyone better. Indeed, reviews by the National Research Council, the RAND Corp., and the Educational Testing Service have all concluded that value-added estimates of teacher effectiveness should not be used to make high-stakes decisions about teachers. Why?

By the end of her second year at MacFarland Middle School, fifth-grade teacher Sarah Wysocki was coming into her own. "It is a pleasure to visit a classroom in which the elements of sound teaching, motivated students and a positive learning environment are so effectively combined," Assistant Principal Kennard Branch wrote in her May 2011 evaluation. He urged Wysocki to share her methods with colleagues at the D.C. public school. Other observations of her classroom that year yielded good ratings. Two months later, she was fired. Wysocki, 31, was let go because the reading and math scores of her students didn't grow as predicted. Her undoing was "value-added," a complex statistical tool used to measure a teacher's direct contribution to test results. The District and at least 25 states, under prodding from the Obama administration, have adopted or are developing value-added systems to assess teachers.

There's been a lot lately about "flipping the classroom," a teaching method where students are to view a lecture at home --ostensibly on-line--of their teacher presenting key concepts while saving doing harder and trickier homework-type assignments for in class. This idea appeals to me and I've been somewhat surprised that so many other education peeps out there whom I follow don't seem as enamored. Not only are they disparaging of the idea, but they seem to think "lecture" is synonymous with torture.

Eva Moskowitz, a charter founder in New York City, says in the article that the reason the numbers of special education students are low is because her schools are able to move students out of special education because of her schools'  superior methods. But this claim demonstrates that her schools take students with the mildest disabilities, and leaves those with high needs to the public schools, a complaint often lodged against charters.

"AFT president Randi Weingarten has recently changed positions on value-added methods (VAM) for teacher evaluation, but maintains support for Common Core (CC). With that shift to rejecting VAM, based on the solid evidence base that shows high-stakes implementation of VAM is at least complicated if not misleading, I would like to request that Weingarten and AFT apply that same analysis to CC."

"Tests are a good, if not absolutely perfect way, of assessing how well students have learned (if the tests are well-designed). If you're trying to assess how a particular change in teaching works (e.g., a new math curriculum), you do need some method to assess performance. But where 'reformers' go off the rails is their incessant belief that testing is a good way to evaluate how well a teacher has taught* (this belief also seems to imply that many teachers aren't performing up to snuff, but I'll let that slide...)."

As a growing number of states move toward legislation that would institute teacher merit pay, the debate around whether and how to use student test scores in high-stakes staffing decisions has become even more hotly contested. The majority of merit pay initiatives, such as those recently proposed in Ohio and Florida, rely to some extent on value-added estimation, the method of measuring a teacher's impact by tracking student growth on test scores from year to year. We recently exchanged e-mails with Steven Glazerman, a Senior Fellow at the policy research group Mathematica. Glazerman specializes in teacher recruitment, performance management, professional development, and compensation. According to Glazerman, a strong understanding of the constructive uses and limitations of value-added data can prove beneficial for district-level human resources practitioners.

This study found that schools fail to make AYP most often because of the students with disabilities subgroup. The failure of the special education subgroup to make AYP occurs mainly because the students with disabilities subgroup is expected to maintain the exact same proficiency levels as their general education peers-a standard that has proved to be problematic because special education students often start out with lower average test scores than general education students. In addition, the students with disabilities subgroup is the only subgroup in which actual limitations on ability to learn might come into play. The existence of these limitations calls into question the wisdom of trying to close the general education-special education "achievement gap" at the same pace as the race- or class-based achievement gaps. In addition to quantitative methods, this study also used legal research techniques to examine the legal impact that the two laws are having on students with disabilities.

A new study by the Council of State Governments Justice Center took a close look at how often students in Texas are disciplined by in- and out-of-school suspension and expulsion. Among the findings: Students with disabilities are especially likely to be punished by one or more of these methods. The researchers looked at records for close to one million students and found that 75 percent of middle and high school students with disabilities in the nation's second-largest public school system were suspended, expelled, or both at least once. That compares to about 55 percent of students without a disability.

From my perspective, there are two MVPs in the current reform debate: Bruce Baker and Matt DiCarlo. I have enormous respect for Matt. He commands a great deal of information about a complex topic, he has a strong grasp of research methods, and he has the ability to distill the thorny language of academic research into writing that lay people can not only understand, but use to inform themselves about this critical debate. Which is why I am so very, very disappointed in his latest post

Los Angeles Unified teachers are participating in an evaluation project that gives more feedback on their methods.

The New York-based Wallace Foundation will give $75 million over the next five years to six school districts who are working on comprehensive methods to identify, train, evaluate and support principals. The six districts to receive the funds are: Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C.; Denver; Gwinnett County, Ga.; Hillsborough County, Fla; New York City; and Prince George's County, Md. Wallace will give each district between $7.5 million and $12.5 million, and, as a condition of the grants, the districts will contribute one- third of their grant amount in local matching funds.

The key to the success of KIPP schools, to my mind, is the network's commitment to finding the best possible leader for each school and leaving that person, and the teachers he or she hires, to decide as a team what methods work best for students. All they have to do is show, with test scores, that their students are showing significant achievement gains that will put them on a path to college.

The difficult business of devising a method to tie teacher evaluations to student test scores is on display in New York, where a judge ruled this week that the state Board of Regents overstepped the boundaries set by a new law, in crafting such a system.

Using both qualitative and quantitative research methods, we recorded over 50 hours of testimony from students and parents, and administered a survey project that engaged 450 students from six public high schools, yielding over 25,000 student observations. This research initiative represents the most extensive youth-led, student-centered evaluation of New Orleans public high schools since Hurricane Katrina. Our study encompasses Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) and Recovery School District (RSD) schools, both direct-run and charter. In total, 450 students have "raised their hands" through either a survey or interview to express their concerns.

New Haven's new method of grading teachers spurred low performers to improve their game-and led 34 others to leave the school district, officials announced Monday in the first test of a nationally watched component of the city's school reform drive.

In 1968, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) went on strike over the involuntary transfer of 19 teachers by a newly empowered community-controlled school board in New York City's Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood. The controversies at the heart of that bitter struggle live on in current debates over the methods of teacher selection, the role of seniority and due process in teacher assignment, and the appropriateness of affirmative action in the composition of urban teaching corps. Then, as now, the role of educators of color in urban school districts was an issue that sparked controversy. In recounting how rules for teacher selection evolved in New York, Christina Collins' book, "Ethnically Qualified", Race, Merit and the Selection of Urban Teachers, 1920-1980, illuminates the failure of the city's teachers' unions to effectively challenge the exclusion and marginalization of African American teachers.

Charter schools are largely viewed as a major innovation in the public school landscape, as they receive more independence from state laws and regulations than do traditional public schools, and are therefore more able to experiment with alternative curricula, pedagogical methods, and different ways of hiring and training teachers. Unlike traditional public schools, charters may be shut down by their authorizers for poor performance. But how is charter school performance measured? What are the effects of charter schools on student achievement?

To date, however, there has not been a comprehensive resource that addresses central questions related to New York City middle school teacher turnover and identifies important avenues for future research. The Research Alliance of New York City Schools aims to fill this gap through a three-year, mixed-methods study of New York City middle school teacher turnover.