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Middle and high school counselors believe they have a unique and powerful role to play in preparing all students for good jobs or college, but they feel hamstrung by insufficient training, competing duties, and their own schools' priorities, according to a study released today. The online survey of 5,300 counselors was conducted this past spring for the College Board's Advocacy & Policy Center. One of the largest-ever surveys of counselors, it paints a picture of a committed but frustrated corps that sees a deep schism between the ideal mission of schools and the work that takes shape day to day.

In preparation for the November 29 public hearing with the Department of Education about the proposed co-location of Success Academy Cobble Hill at 284 Baltic St., parents, teachers and even some drowsy students gathered Monday for a District 15 wide PTA meeting to discuss a course of action and voice concerns.

In time for Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's presentation of the Obama administration's reforms to teacher preparation programs last week, a new report offers comprehensive recommendations for how to develop and maintain teacher evaluation and support systems.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten is calling today for a new brand of unionism that focuses not only on helping members but also the communities in which they work and live. The union's annual convention starts today in Detroit, where more than than 3,000 delegates have gathered at a time when teachers and their unions have come under attack from school reformers. Though teachers have been unhappy with many of President Obama's education initiatives, Weingarten's speech urges members to support him in the November election because he shares many of the same values as union members. As for GOP candidate Mitt Romney, she says, "His idea of education reform is vouchers, which study after study has shown do not improve achievement." The two candidates, she said, "couldn't be more different." The convention will also be addressed by Vice President Biden, education historian Diane Ravitch and others. Here is Weingarten's convention speech as prepared for delivery:

More than half the states have now been excused from important conditions of the No Child Left Behind education law. They've been allowed to create new measures of how much students have improved and how well they are prepared for college or careers, and to assess teacher performance on that basis. Teachers will be evaluated in part on how well their students perform on standardized tests. One study, though, found that some state plans could weaken accountability. How can we measure achievement of students, teachers and schools in a way that is fair and accurate, and doesn't provide incentives for obsessive testing, and cheating? Contributors include: Leonie Haimson, Pedro Noguera, Michael Petrilli, Marcus Winters, Rishawn Biddle, Julia Fox, Kevin Carey, Patrick Bassett, and Sandra Stotsky

"In response to a request under the NJ Open Public Records Act (OPRA), Education Law Center has obtained a confidential proposal prepared for the Broad Foundation by the NJ Department of Education (NJDOE) to "turnaround," take control, and potentially close over 200 public schools over the next three years.  NJ Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf submitted a draft "School Turnaround Proposal" to the Eli Broad Foundation in November 2011, seeking to secure millions in grant funds from the private, Los Angeles-based foundation. The draft formed the basis of a final proposal, submitted February 2012, requesting $7.6 million in grant funds."

Could teacher evaluations begin to offer us the best portrait yet of what instruction actually looks like in America's classrooms? And what changes might such information spur in teacher preparation and on-the-job training? Those are implications raised by a couple of different papers looking at teacher evaluations. I've written about them on this blog before, but only from the technical aspects of the systems. In reviewing the reports again, it strikes me that they also have a lot to say about instructional quality-some of which seems frankly troubling.

Principals new to their schools face a variety of challenges that can influence their likelihood of improving their schools' performance and their likelihood of remaining the principal. Understanding the actions that principals take and the working conditions they face in the first year can inform efforts to promote school improvement and principal retention, but the research on first-year principals' experiences is limited. This report examines the actions and perceived working conditions of first-year principals, relating information on those factors to subsequent school achievement and principal retention. This report presents findings from an analysis of schools led by principals who were in their first year at their schools. Throughout this report, we define first-year principals as principals in their first year at a given school including those principals with previous experience as principals at other schools. The study is based on data that were collected to support the RAND Corporation's seven-year formative and summative evaluation of New Leaders. New Leaders is an organization that is dedicated to promoting student achievement by developing outstanding school leaders to serve in urban schools. The findings will be of interest to policymakers in school districts, charter management organizations (CMOs), state education agencies, and principal preparation programs, in addition to principals themselves and teachers. This research was conducted in RAND Education, a unit of the RAND Corporation, under a contract with New Leaders.

For full disclosure, I am a principal of a low needs school, although with all the budget cuts rural schools are facing, we will be high needs soon enough. Many of our students come in with a variety of experiences and they are well-prepared to learn. We have an average number of students who struggle and we try to find diverse ways to educate them. Unfortunately, as the years have gone by we all worry about what high stakes testing will show. We are told not to worry because they will "only" count for 20% of an educator's evaluation. However, for those who have their names published in the New York Post, that 20% might seem like a much larger number these days.

"We opted out, not for us, but for the other students who are subjected to this testing regimen. This is our way of protesting for the students with disabilities, students whose primary language is not English, and students who were administered a test they were not prepared for. The tests are not developmentally appropriate, have not been properly field-tested and take away from other critical areas of education that are quickly dwindling - like art and music. We also are opposed to student test results being tied to teacher performance."

"Billionaires like privately managed schools. Parents are lured with glittering promises of getting their kids a sure ticket to college. Politicians want to appear to be champions of "school reform" with charters. But charters will not end the poverty at the root of low academic performance or transform our nation's schools into a high-performing system. The world's top-performing systems - Finland and Korea, for example - do not have charter schools. They have strong public school programs with well-prepared, experienced teachers and administrators. Charters and that other faux reform, vouchers, transform schooling into a consumer good, in which choice is the highest value."

"According to The New York Times, the New York State Attorney General has exposed the supposedly non-profit Pearson Foundation for what it really is, a partner with the for-profit wing of the global Pearson publishing mega-giant. The Pearson Foundation agreed to pay a penalty of over seven million dollars to New York State that will be used to prepare teachers to work in high needs communities. According to New York State law, foundations are prohibited by law from using charitable funds to promote and develop for-profit activities."

"In the United States, we entrust state and local leaders to make most consequential decisions affecting schools.  It's ironic, then, that the federal government funds most of the research and evaluation work in education.  State and local leaders bear a responsibility to study the consequences of their decisions.  We will make much faster progress when they do.  At this very moment, chief academic officers around the country are choosing professional development providers to prepare teachers for the Common Core.  Districts are choosing curricula.  Why can't we provide them with better evidence to guide their choices?  Or, at the very least, why can't we compare the 2014-15 gains for those making different choices now, so that we have a clearer view of what worked going into the 2015-16 school year?  Otherwise, we will continue reinventing the wheel.  School leaders need to get out of the wheel reinvention business."

"...For those involved in policy matters, this book will, if you let it, unsettle you. Most involved in policy are addressing matters around the edges, even if they do confront matters of poverty and background. Perhaps you will find yourself disagreeing with some of what the authors present. Fair enough, but can you then as a reader and a policy maker come up with reasons for not addressing the issues with which they challenge you? Do not all of us-teachers, parents, administrators, policy makers-owe our children, our students, a willingness to think beyond our current practices so that we can do the best job possible of preparing them to take responsibility for the world which we will leave them?..."

"As part of Teacher Appreciation Week, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan published an open letter to America's teachers. Perhaps Secretary Duncan writes his own speeches-but the fact that the U.S. Department of Education lists 124 employees for the Office of Communications and Outreach suggests otherwise. Perhaps the secretary's mind wanders as he reads the texts prepared for him-and perhaps he inserts his own thoughts as he reads along. Here's Duncan's letter, along with what I imagine just what those thoughts might be."

The debates surrounding Ohio's biennial budget and other education-related legislation during the first half of 2011 were intense, and it's no wonder. The state headed into the year facing a historic deficit, federal stimulus money was vanishing, and school districts were preparing for draconian cuts. Meanwhile, despite decades of reform efforts and increases in school funding, Ohio's academic performance has remained largely stagnant, with barely one-third of the state's students scoring proficient or better in either math or reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Achievement gaps continued to yawn between black and white students and between disadvantaged youngsters and their better-off peers. 

Steve Whitten has had two careers - the first as a non-certified special-education teacher, the second as an administrator and counselor at the Rhode Island School of Design. Now, he is embarking on a third profession as an English and special-education teacher in a public school. Typically, Whitten would have to complete a two-year certificate program at an education school. Instead, he has enrolled in an intensive, six-week program run by the Rhode Island Teaching Fellows that promises to prepare him to fly solo this fall.

Over the past decade I have served as a mentor teacher to more than a dozen beginning teachers in the challenging schools of Oakland. Most of them have been interns, fresh out of college, with just a few weeks of summer training, and a "bag of tricks" that they were given by their only slightly more experienced trainers. They are trained to focus on the data. Start testing early, and make sure the students understand how important those scores are. Set BIG goals, such as that 80% of your students will score well. Track progress using big graphs on the wall with each student's name or number. Develop reward systems to manage behavior. Step into one of these classrooms, and you will find elaborate systems that are designed to "incent" good behavior, and impose costs on bad. You may even find a whole economy, complete with currency - the "behavior bucks," handed out in $100 bills prepared on the school photocopier.

Who should read this book? Anyone who is touched by public education - teachers, administrators, teacher-educators, students, parents, politicians, pundits, and citizens - ought to read this book. It will speak to educators, policymakers and citizens who are concerned about the future of education and its relation to a robust, participatory democracy. The perspectives offered by a wonderfully diverse collection of contributors provide a glimpse into the complex, multilayered factors that shape, and are shaped by, institutions of schooling today. The analyses presented in this text are critical of how globalization and neoliberalism exert increasing levels of control over the public institutions meant to support the common good. Readers of this book will be well prepared to participate in the dialogue that will influence the future of public education in this nation - a dialogue that must seek the kind of change that represents hope for all students.

City students posted modest gains on elementary and middle school statewide tests this year, showing more improvement than students in the state as a whole and in the state's other large cities, state officials said Monday. But city and state scores both remain far below where they were two years ago, when sky-high scores made it seem that an education miracle might be at work in New York schools. Last year, state officials readjusted scoring after determining that the tests had become too easy to pass and were out of balance with national and college-preparation standards. As a result, scores plummeted.