Just to let you know, check out my latest American Spectator column, this on battles over fixing umderfunded pensions and reforming how teachers are compensated for their work. As you have read here, battles in N.J., Pennslyvania, Vermont and even Utah are harbingers of battles (and possible teachers union reverses) to come. Also, listen to the Dropout Nation Podcast on the taxpayer motivations for revamping teachers compensation. Enjoy and keep warm.
On this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast, I offer some important steps towards recruiting and developing more high-quality teachers. Eliminating tenure, eliminating seniority-based benefits and embracing the use of student performance data — along with moves such as the dismissal of 241 poor-performing teachers last week by D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee — are important [...]
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(Click on the headline to watch the video) Certainly Michelle Rhee knows how to stir up controversy — especially when it comes to her efforts as chancellor of D.C. Public Schools to improve the district’s abysmal quality of teaching and curricula. Her decision to dismiss 241 teachers rated as ineffective by the district’s year-old IMPACT [...]
President Barack Obama may not be a fan of school voucher programs — and has allowed D.C.’s Opportunity Scholarship Program to go out of business. But his Race to the Top school reform competition has fostered new discussion about — and efforts to — launch and expand these forms of school choice for the poorest [...]
Based on the talk about (and derision from defenders of traditional public education over) the level of attrition of Teach For America graduates after entering classrooms, one would think that university schools of education were stellar in this regard. But as the eminent teaching guru Martin Haberman points out, half of all aspiring teachers coming [...]
For those who read the New York Times report on the use of Facebook by students to praise their teachers — or Bijan Sabat’s own thoughts on the matter — listen to this Dropout Nation Podcast on Harlem Link Charter School co-founder Steven Evangelista and how his rediscovery of one of his former students — [...]
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RiShawn Biddle/Dropout Nation on Twitter The Dropout Nation Podcast
