"Governor Cuomo Sends Letter to the Chancellor of the Board of Regents Regarding Performance Evaluations for Teachers"

"New York state is weighing whether to prohibit high-school teachers from grading their own students' Regents exams. The Board of Regents, which sets education policy for the state, is set to vote next week on the ban. "

"This week, in an Atlantic article, former New York City Public Schools Chancellor Joel Klein dropped an incendiary Albert Shanker quote that you've probably heard before: When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children. The negative implications of this statement are obvious, which is why it is so frequently quoted by (mostly) conservative pundits and journalists."

"Financially troubled ICEF Public Schools, backed by Richard Riordan, was to be acquired by Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, but the deal has been scrapped, and ICEF's leadership is in flux."

"In her most recent HuffPost piece, Michelle Rhee poses the rhetorical question, "How can I ask parents to accept less than I'd want for my kids?" She then goes on to make the same old tired arguments for school vouchers, most of which are simply different iterations of this shallow emotional ploy: "If public schools are lousy we must give the poor families the same opportunities that the rich folks in private schools have. It's only fair." And Ms. Rhee is not alone in this voucher resurgence; Indiana just passed what will arguably be the nation's most comprehensive voucher program."

"They, the "billionaire boys club," have a different agenda, and the issues we raise are truly not important to them. Or at least to most of those in the public eye these days. Some see the chance to destroy another public stronghold-our schools-as a lifelong dream come true. They are 100 percent convinced that market competition is always the best. Period. Probably the only institution they believe should remain public is the military, and they are already nibbling away at some of what we used to consider a soldier's job. "

"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...)."

"New Jersey's current commissioner of education seems to stake much of his arguments for the urgency of implementing reform strategies on the argument that while New Jersey ranks high on average performance, New Jersey ranks 47th in achievement gap between low-income and non-low income children (video here: http://livestre.am/M3YZ). To be fair, this is classic political rhetoric with few or no partisan boundaries."

"American education is going to be reformed until it rolls over and begs for mercy. Vouchers! Guns on campus! Just the other day, the Florida State Legislature took a giant step toward ending the scourge of droopy drawers in high school by upping the penalties for underwear-exposing pants. "

"The following post was written by Chester E. Finn Jr., President, and Michael J. Petrilli, Executive Vice-President, of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington, D.C."

"Because of its length, this entry will come in two parts. I'll post part two in a week or so. This essay originally appeared in Dissent,, Spring, 2011. If you share or repost it, please acknowledge the magazine."

"Secretary of Education Arne Duncan hoped to gain the goodwill of the nation's educators with an "Open Letter" to teachers. But as Diane Ravitch explains, many reacted with fury."

"When given the opportunity, many teachers choose to leave schools serving poor, low-performing, and nonwhite students. While a substantial research literature has documented this phenomenon, far less research effort has gone into understanding what features of the working conditions in these schools drive this relatively higher turnover rate. This paper explores the relationship between school contextual factors and teacher retention decisions in New York City. The methodological approach separates the effects of teacher characteristics from school characteristics by modeling the relationship between the assessments of school contextual factors by one set of teachers and the turnover decisions by other teachers within the same school. Teachers' perceptions of the school administration have by far the greatest influence on teacher-retention decisions. This effect of administration is consistent for first-year teachers and the full sample of teachers and is confirmed by a survey of teachers who have recently left teaching in New York City."

"In this brief I consider the stability of value-added measures, the factors that are associated with the degree of stability and the resulting implications for future research and policy."

"Scores on tests of students' academic achievement are currently widely used in educational accountability systems. This use typically rests on two assumptions: that students' scores are a reasonable measure of educational output, and therefore that holding teachers accountable for them will provide appropriate incentives to improve the performance of teachers and the functioning of schools. This paper explains why neither of this commonsensical assumptions is warranted and argues that over-reliance on achievement tests in accountability systems produces perverse incentives. Better incentives may require that test scores be used along with numerous other measures, many of which are more subjective than test scores are."

"The recent, breathless opposition to the idea of common curricular content led us to reflect on just how long educators have been asking for this practical tool for better schooling - only to be rebuffed by those more interested in playing politics. It's been generations. More than 20 years ago, Al Shanker waded into the fray. The following, entitled "An American Revolution in Education: Developing a Common Core," was published by Al in his weekly Where We Stand column on Feb. 24, 1991."

"A conservative billionaire who opposes government meddling in business has bought a rare commodity: the right to interfere in faculty hiring at a publicly funded university. A foundation bankrolled by Libertarian businessman Charles G. Koch has pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University's economics department. In return, his representatives get to screen and sign off on any hires for a new program promoting "political economy and free enterprise.""

"Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker continues to court national support for an extreme agenda of attacking public employees and public services while diminishing local democracy and shifting public money to private political allies. Despite the fact that Walker's moves have been widely condemned in his home state, the hyper-ambitious career politician has repeatedly suggested that he will not moderate his positions because he wants to shift the tenor of politics and policymaking far beyond Wisconsin."