October 2010
11 posts
5 tags
Teachers Under Attack Once Again
This article from the Akron Beacon Journal is titled, “Teacher Salaries Draw Scrutiny.” The article goes on to describe how a group in a wealthy Akron suburb, Bath Township, is opposing a levy because most of the revenue will be used to pay teacher salaries. The irony here is on several levels. The school system, Revere, is highly-rated. This is not about performance. The average...
4 tags
Teacher Evaluation by Value-Added Won't Work →
A sharp little video that quickly explains why merit pay and value-added teacher evaluation won’t work. This should be watched my all teachers and parents. It should really be watched by the teacher-bashers who feel destroying tenure and unions will solve the ills of education.
3 tags
Get Ready For More Teacher Bashing
Well, it looks like New York will be the next stop in the national teacher-bashing express. The Shanker Blog spills the beans with an article on how New York papers are ready to duplicate the L.A. Times shameless “expose” of listing third and fifth grade teachers and their value-added effect on their students as measured by several years of California standards-based test results. Not...
School Reform
My school just had a professional day devoted to school reform. We watched Race To Nowhere, then broke into small groups to discuss what we had seen and talk about the direction we might want to take as a school. I’m in my 35th year of teaching and I’ve seen lots of so-called school reform efforts over the years. I was a little surprised how easy it was for teachers in our group to...
2 tags
No Child Left Unfed →
“There is overwhelming evidence that poverty is, indeed the problem in education.” This, along with socio-economic inequity, and NOT bad teachers, is the motivation for this blog. Blaming teachers is easy. Teachers are an easy target. Individually, they aren’t good at fighting back. Collectively, unions are on their heels, rocked by the sucker punches thrown at them by...
3 tags
Change the System, We Have Great Teachers!
The recent bashing of teachers has really depressed my colleagues and me. I’ve been thinking about the people I work with, the people I’ve worked with, and the teachers I’ve come to know in other districts. These are good people who care about their work with young people. I’d like to share a few tidbits about them.
Mark came to our department twenty years ago, fresh out...
2 tags
October 17 - Blog for Positive Educational Reform →
All educational bloggers are being asked to blog for positive educational reform on Sunday, October 17. Please consider doing so, and posting a link on the Wallwisher site. Read Tom Whitby’s link for more information.
2 tags
High Stakes Tests - A Warning From New York
In “On New York School Tests, Warning Signs Ignored,” this NY Times article discusses the issue of student test results, which had been going up, being questioned, reset, and plummeting. This infographic, also from the NY Times, shows what happened.
One of my concerns with my state’s achievement tests, including the graduation test, is the bar has been set low, and sometimes...
4 tags
Should All AP Students Be Required To Take The AP...
Leafing through my feed reader and came across this article from ASCD on the Dallas Independent School District’s science magnet school requiring all students in an AP course to take the exam. It seems to be generating a bit of a debate.
My high school requires students enrolled in an AP course to take the test. Students are also required to pay for their tests unless they can show need (in...
3 tags
Good Article on Education Reform →
I’m posting this article because it says a lot of what I’ve been trying to get out to the world about education reform and the problem of blaming teachers for education’s ills.
3 tags
29 Ways to Use Google Docs in the Classroom →
We get all of our students Google Docs accounts. Here are some creative uses for you and for them. Thanks to @tombarrett.
