Skip to main content

Home/ JHU / ISTE 2010/ Group items tagged accountability

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Brendan Murphy

edweek.org: Technology Counts 2006: Delving Into Data - 0 views

  • from the students' first years in school right up to that very day.
    • Brendan Murphy
       
      There is such a thing as too much information, but I get the point.
    • Brendan Murphy
       
      I worked for a compay that sold Pnnicle Analytics and the stuff you can learn from data mining is awesome. Especially when they make an intuitive interface.
  • student identifiers,
    • Brendan Murphy
       
      I can see how this would raise a lot of privacy concerns
  • Without links to other data, the usefulness of student identifiers is diminished,
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Data on Teachers Uneven
    • Brendan Murphy
       
      I can see how collecting data on teachers is a problem until we answer the question of how do we evaluate quality teachers. What if someone points to a implementation dip and uses that as grounds for termination?
  • use their data to help struggling teachers and to reward successful ones
    • Brendan Murphy
       
      I like how there is nothing negative. Data is used to help.
  • but the information is used in principals' evaluations of their teachers
    • Brendan Murphy
       
      But now its used in evaluations
  • While it's useful to have that kind of longitudinal data [for policy purposes]," he says, "one should not impute conclusions about the true depth of a child's intellectual development in terms of math, science, or whatever."
  • results on statewide tests aren't as useful as many policymakers think.
  • Students take the tests at the start of every quarter in every subject, and the results are available the same day. The data are broken down by the racial, ethnic, economic, and other subgroups used in NCLB accountability reports.
    • Brendan Murphy
       
      I've never understood why it would take any longer.
Brendan Murphy

The Case Against "Tougher Standards" - 0 views

  • But the current demand for Tougher Standards carries with it a bundle of assumptions about the proper role of schools
  • 1959, John Holt wrote that the main effect "of the drive for so-called higher standards in schools is that the children are too busy to think."
  • frankly, there never was a time when it worked all that well
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Accountability" usually turns out to be a code for tighter control over what happens in classrooms by people who are not in classroom
  • Rather than scrambling to comply with its provisions, our obligation is to figure out how best to resist.
Brendan Murphy

SEDL - School Context: Bridge or Barrier to Change - 0 views

  • Those seeking lasting school improvement must face the fact that effective change takes time and resources.
  • Funding is also important because underfunding a project may result in the inability to address problems until the next fiscal year (Pink, 1990
  • Allowing the time needed for new programs to demonstrate results is often overlooked as a bridge to school improvement. Slavin (1989) points out:
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • the cellular organization of schools keeps teachers physically apart from other professionals in the school. This isolation then impacts teacher attitudes and limits the relationships between teachers, students, administrators, and the community -- relationships that are essential factors in the change process.
  • Structures in the school that contribute to teacher isolation and the feeling that the individual cannot make a difference are indeed barriers to school improvement efforts.
  • Secondary students, in particular, must cope with a structure with which no worker in the real world would be saddled (Shanker, 1989). Shanker (1989) describes some of these conditions: They're put into a room to work with 30 or more of their peers, with whom they cannot communicate. The teacher gives them their tasks, and, when the bell rings 40 or so minutes later, they have to gather up their belongings and head to another "work station" for a whole new set of tasks with a new "supervisor" who has a different personality and, very likely, a different method of operation. This routine is repeated six or seven times a day�All youngsters are expected to have sufficient motivation and self-discipline to get down to serious work on day one in anticipation of a "reward" far down the road -- something most adults need all their fortitude to accomplish. (p. 3)
  • Spady (1988) believes that the organization of schools around the calendar, the clock and the schedule, exerts a pervasive influence on the thinking of those who work and study in them. This focus on time, along with the legal mandate to keep students in the custody of the school for fixed periods of time, may result in teachers adopting the unproductive syndromes of "putting in time" and "covering material" (Spady, 1988).
  • In a 1987 study, Pittman and Haughwout estimate that the
  • dropout rate at a school increases one percent for every 400-student increase in the high school population.
  • benefits to the curriculum gained by size of enrollment peaked at 400 students
  • In large schools a breakdown occurs in communication, feedback about performance, and staff involvement in decision making (Hallinger, Bickman, & Davis, 1990).
  • According to Fullan (1991), the working conditions of teachers in the vast majority of schools are not conducive to sustained teacher innovation
  • To improve teacher performance, the work environment must enhance teachers' sense of professionalism and decrease their career dissatisfaction.
  • Sarason (1982) reports that the untested assumption that few others think the same way keeps school staff from expressing ideas for improving the school.
  • This vast array of regulations runs counter to the findings of Chubb and Moe (1990), who found that schools with a greater percentage of academically achieving students have "substantial school autonomy from direct external control" (p. 183)
  • Basic education policy should be shaped at state and district levels, but the day-to-day decision-making should shift to the local school, according to a report of the Carnegie Foundation (1988). This report concludes that what is needed is school-based authority with accountability at the school level.
Brendan Murphy

New schools chief Brizard largely likable but often not liked - Chicago Sun-Times - 0 views

  • “put children first”
    • Brendan Murphy
       
      A lot of people say they put children first, but where is the proof?
  • As a former New York City high school teacher and principal he carries the in-the-trenches experience
    • Brendan Murphy
       
      This is a nice change
  • in-school suspension
    • Brendan Murphy
       
      This is better than out of school suspensions. Is there a third alternative?
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • principals more accountable
1 - 5 of 5
Showing 20 items per page