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As the debate rages on I suggest that teachers ask themselves one simple question: Should my professional work be reduced to a number that is public and thus will affect my relationship with my community, students and their families? If the answer to that question is "no," then let your elected representatives know that you are a taxpayer and a voter, as well as a teacher. Educators must not "Race to the Top" of a hill only to find we are lemmings going over a cliff, with our public schools and our students falling behind us.

But I think there's another factor that is poorly understood. Teachers (and their unions) have been made scapegoats for all the ills afflicting public schools. The unrelenting criticism makes them feel unappreciated. It's important to remember that Teachers do not choose the profession for fame, fortune or power. They do so because they want to help young people reach their full potential. Their mission is captured in a recruiting slogan from many years ago: "Be all you can be... in the Army." The MetLife Survey puts to rest the assumption that Teacher disaffection is higher in inner-city schools than in suburban schools. In fact, attitudes were remarkably similar across the board.

But there is another case that teachers might make-a criticism that would level a blow to the radical overhaul of teacher evaluation, and, more importantly, one that just might help students learn. And the case is this: Achievement, as we measure it, is not really about achievement. As determined by multiple-choice tests-the dominant way that we measure it in the United States-achievement is not about how students can think or write or persuade. It is not about how they can perform experiments or produce original research. It is not about their prowess in art or civics or robotics. Instead, it is about memorized minutiae and good guesses. We accept this approach to measurement only because it is so common. And it is common not because it actually measures achievement, but because it is time-efficient and cost-effective. -iStockphoto.com/Nuno Silva Simply put, we're using the wrong instrument. Evaluating teachers through multiple-choice-based tests of student learning is like using the rules of Go Fish to assess poker skill.

"There continues to be much bluster out there in ed reformy land that money really isn't all that important - especially for traditional public school districts. That local public schools and districts already have way too much money but use it so inefficiently that any additional dollar would necessarily be wasted. An extension of this line of reasoning is that therefore differences in spending across districts are also inconsequential. It really doesn't matter - the reformy line of thinking goes - if the suburbs around Philly, Chicago or New York dramatically outspend them, as long as some a-contextual, poorly documented and often flat out wrong, blustery statement can be made about a seemingly large aggregate or per pupil spending figure that the average person on the street should simply find offensive. Much of this bluster about the irrelevance of funding is strangely juxtaposed with arguments that inequity of teacher quality and the adequacy of the quality of the teacher workforce are the major threats to our education system. But of course, these threats have little or nothing to do with money? Right? As I've explained previously - equitable distribution of quality teaching requires equitable (not necessarily equal) distribution of resources. Districts serving more needy student populations require smaller classes and more intensive supports if their students are expected to close the gap with their more advantaged peers - or strive for common outcome goals. Even recruiting similarly qualified teachers in higher need settings requires higher, not the same or lower compensation. Districts serving high need populations require a) more staff - more specialized, more diverse and even more of the same (core classroom teacher) staff, of b) at least equal qualifications. That means they need more money (than their more advantaged neighbors) to get the job done. If they so happen to have substantially less money, it's not a matter of simply tradin

"There has recently been a lot of talk about teachers' views on education policy. Many teachers have been quite vocal in their opposition to certain policies (also here) and many more have expressed their views democratically - through their unions - especially in states where teachers have collective bargaining rights."

"The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), is a Gates-funded organization dedicated to data-driven, market-oriented "reform." It sees itself as a part of a coalition for "a better orchestrated agenda" for accountability, choice, and using test scores to drive the evaluation of Teachers. Its forte is publishing non-peer reviewed opinion pieces under the guise of "policy analysis." "

This quantitative study uses data from North Carolina to examine the extent to which survey based perceptions of working conditions are predictive of policy-relevant outcomes, independent of other school characteristics such as the demographic mix of the school's students. Working conditions emerge as highly predictive of teachers' stated intentions to remain in or leave their schools, with leadership emerging as the most salient dimension. teachers' perceptions of their working conditions are also predictive of one-year actual departure rates and student achievement, but the predictive power is far lower. These weaker findings for actual outcome measures help to highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of using teacher survey data for understanding outcomes of policy interest.

Over the past 2 years, several states have passed legislation to create new teacher evaluation systems linked to student learning, and to require results from those evaluations to be used to inform key personnel decisions--particularly teacher layoffs. (Report can be found at http://bellwethereducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/State-teacher-Leg-Comparison.pdf)

Chicago Public Schools officials Thursday did an abrupt about-face on implementing a controversial teacher-applicant test and said teacherFit scores would no longer be used to automatically blacklist potential teachers.

"Nearly one in five U.S. educators say they support abolishing teachers unions, and one in three support ending tenure for teachers, according to a new survey by the think-tank National Center for Education Information." But what's the margin of error in the survey?

Teacher pay is an entirely artificial concept unrelated to anything but union contracts and reference tables on the number of years spent teaching. Other than, say, relating it to the hourly scale for babysitting, teaching has no inherent market value. Sure, studies show the hours Teachers put in, the value of good educators on student lives, and the horror show of failed school systems. But no one has figured out--or wants to figure out--a good way to measure Teacher pay.

To the editors: In "Firing Line: The Grand Coalition against Teachers," Joanne Barkan makes a compelling case for why we should be concerned about the direction of the current education reform movement. There's no doubt that an increasingly powerful group of self-styled "education reformers" have come to blame Teachers and their unions for the problems ailing public schools. They contend that unions protect ineffective Teachers from being dismissed, allow for evaluation systems that fail to differentiate Teacher performance, and promote a salary schedule that rewards seniority rather than teaching excellence. Accordingly, they accuse union leaders of using their political power to thwart flexibility and stifle innovation.

Just when it seemed that teachers unions could not possibly be subjected to any further attacks, they find themselves confronting a totally unexpected foe. According to a new survey by the National Center for Education Information, nearly one in five educators say they support abolishing teachers unions ("Profile of teachers in the U.S. 2011").

Covington is a product of the Broad Superintendents Academy. Bill Gates wrote a commentary last March in which he argued: What should policymakers do? One approach is to get more students in front of top teachers by identifying the top 25 percent of teachers and asking them to take on four or five more students. Part of the savings could then be used to give the top teachers a raise. This appears to be the inspiration for Superintendent Covington's experiment.

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.

In the most competitive market for job-hunting teachers in New Orleans in recent memory -- perhaps ever -- some worry that veteran educators have received short shrift. Several teachers who attended a recent meeting at the United teachers of New Orleans, for instance, alleged the district has discriminated based on age in order to save money.

In a previous post, I lamented the scarcity of survey data measuring what teachers think of different education policy reforms. A couple of weeks ago, the National Center for Education Information (NCEI) released the results of their teacher survey (conducted every five years), which provides a useful snapshot of teachers' opinions toward different policies (albeit not at the level of detail that one might wish).

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.

Here's something you won't read too often in RHSU: "UFT president Michael Mulgrew is right." But he is. Just today, a New York state appellate court ruled that New York City must release reports that show value-added data on a teacher-by-teacher basis, with teachers' names attached. I agree with Mulgrew that this is an unfortunate decision.

The beliefs of star teachers are compared with those of quitter/failures. Twelve of these beliefs are explained, and examples are given of how they are demonstrated in terms of actual teacher practices. The argument is presented that the strength of these belief systems makes teacher selection more important than training.