Group items tagged

"Over the past year or two, roughly 15-20 states have passed or are considering legislation calling for the overhaul of teacher evaluation. The central feature of most of these laws is a mandate to incorporate measures of student test score growth, in most cases specifying a minimum percentage of a teacher's total score that must consist of these estimates."

Cohen's argument on the importance of infrastructure does not necessarily mean that we should abandon the testing of new evaluation systems, only that we should be very careful about how we interpret their results and the policy conclusions we draw from them (which is good advice at all times). Unfortunately, however, it seems that caution is in short supply.

The ability to measure cost effectiveness in education, and convince parents and educators that it's in their best interest, will determine the future of online education, according to a paper authored by the American Enterprise Institute's Frederick M. Hess.

A recent discussion between David K. Cohen of the University of Michigan and the Fordham Institute's Chris Tessone used the term infrastructure. Cohen, in an earlier post on ShankarBlog (from the American Federation of Teachers' Shankar Institute), argued that individual reforms such as the DCPS IMPACT teacher performance review system were insufficient to fix the system overall. Cohen argues that what is needed is an instructional infrastructure that provides teachers with tools for their job.

Dana Goldstein and Ezra Klein are two smart, capable writers who know plenty about education policy. And yet, when they get together to discuss teacher evaluation, they completely - COMPLETELY - miss the most important point to be made in the entire debate

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

Teachers unions have the right to collectively bargain over almost every component of teacher evaluations, an Albany County (N.Y.) Supreme Court judge ruled Wednesday afternoon, dealing a blow to those who think teacher reviews should be based heavily on objective data.

Teachers can't be rated "ineffective" under a new state evaluation system solely because their students perform badly on state tests, an Albany court ruled today.

Along comes neo-liberal education reform, built around the idea that the invisible hand of markets and competition can solve educational problems.  A whole raft of activity follows.  Reformers talk about billions spent each year compensating teachers for master's degrees that are disconnected from student outcomes.  Municipalities and school boards balk at funding automatic step raises on the grounds that longevity does not equal quality.  The linchpins of tenure and seniority come under assault on the somewhat contradictory grounds that tenure protects bad teachers and seniority encourages the mal-distribution of good teachers.

In practising what should really be called "humanitarian privatisation", Winfrey and other philanthropists like Bill Gates have targeted public education with missionary zeal, speaking authoritatively on a subject they know little about. Having decided not to donate to inner-city public schools after criticising them and deeming their students unwilling to learn, Winfrey has publicly backed those advocating "charter schools", the US equivalent of free schools - including Gates and the makers of a controversial film, Waiting for "Superman", which attacks teachers and unions. In a parallel move, Rupert Murdoch is going ahead with plans to sponsor an academy in east London over the objections of the local council.

There's no question that NCLB and RttT have marked an unprecedented level of federal involvement in education. In response to the sweeping and unproven reforms that these laws have brought to our nation's schools, there is an increasing call for the federal government to stay out of what has traditionally been regarded as a local issue.

A New York state appellate court has ruled New York City must release reports that measure public school teachers' effect on their student test scores - complete with the teachers' names.

This is a pdf of the decision in the NYSUT vs Board of Regents case.

The judge also wrote that Regents and the state Education Department cannot prescribe that a certain portion-two-thirds-of the remaining 60 points have to be based on classroom observations and no more than 5 points on evidence that teachers set and pursue professional growth goals.  He said those aspects of the regulations are invalid. Also invalid is the part of the regulations that would result in a teacher's being evaluated as "ineffective" solely based on the results of one student test. Teachers who receive composite scores under 65 would be deemed "ineffective."

The state teacher's union declared a major court victory on Wednesday after a judge ruled that a school district cannot impose a teacher evaluation system where 40 percent is based on student test scores. Student test scores will count for at least 20 percent of an educator's evaluation, and could count for an additional 20 percent only if it is collectively bargained, NYSUT spokesman Carl Korn said.

"Tennessee education officials say they're taking steps to address teachers' concerns about a new evaluation system that for the first time will use students' standardized test scores as part of the process."

Now, the implication that "anything is better than the status quo" is a rather massive fallacy in public policy, as it assumes that the costs of alternatives will outweigh benefits, and that there is no chance the replacement policy will have a negative impact (almost always an unsafe assumption). But, in the case of teacher evaluations, the "status quo" is no longer what people seem to think.

The state's new teacher merit pay law kicks in this school year and the idea behind it sounds simple: the better students perform, the more teachers can earn. But in areas such as art, music and physical education, it's raising more questions than answers. The law mandates up to half of a teacher's raise be based on how well students do on standardized tests, but there is no state criteria to evaluate specialty teachers. Districts will have to come up with that this year.

The "standards-based" K-12 educational reform movement began in the late 1980s and continues today. The original goals of most sets of content standards included an altered form of classroom practice. Educational researchers devoted great effort to developing inquiry-oriented instructional materials and professional development models to support the reform efforts. Although there have been pockets of reform success in some schools and districts, large-scale evaluations of reform efforts indicate that the influence of these efforts on classroom practice and student achievement have been uneven at best. It is our contention that reformers' focus on changing classroom practice is misguided. The standards movement has been hijacked by a "business-scientific" view of schooling that assumes the purpose of education is to prepare students to compete in the global economy. The concepts of assessment and accountability associated with this purpose in the business-scientific view inhibit reform. Researchers committed to reform need to recognize the inherently political nature of reform and work toward a renegotiation of the overarching purpose of education. This also means attending to the consequences of that purpose for school governance, assessment, and accountability.

An appeals court ruled Thursday that rankings of New York City public-school teachers should be released to the public. In a unanimous decision, the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court in Manhattan said the rankings should be disclosed because they "concern information of a type that is of compelling interest to the public, namely, the proficiency of public employees in the performance of their job duties."