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Watch: Layla Avila on Teacher Quality

May 19, 2010 This is Dropout Nation, Video Education, teacher quality 1 Comment

As I discussed today in my column at The American Spectator, one of the biggest challenges facing the National Education Association is the consensus that it helps perpetuate a culture of low quality academic instruction. But it isn’t just the NEA taking the hit. As Layla Avila of The New Teacher Project explains in this 2009 testimony before the House Education and Labor Committee, school districts are also doing little to address teacher quality.

As you will see in this video, improving teacher quality isn’t just a business for Avila. It isn’t for me either. And it definitely shouldn’t be for you.

Watch more videos at Dropout Nation’s YouTube page.

The Dropout Nation Podcast: Get Rid of Poor-Performing Teachers (and the System that Protects Them)

May 16, 2010 Dropout Nation Podcast, This is Dropout Nation, Urban Decay, teacher quality 3 Comments

Dropout Nation Podcast Cover

On this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast, I discuss how poor-performing teachers damage the educational destinies of students, bring down the morale of their colleagues and foster the nation’s dropout crisis. The damage wrecked by ineffective teaching — and the culture of mediocrity they foster — is promoted and sustained by schools of education, collective bargaining agreements, state laws and cultures within districts.

You can listen to the Podcast at RiShawn Biddle’s radio page or download directly to your iPod, MP3 player or smartphone. Also, subscribe to the podcast series. It is also available on iTunes, Blubrry, Podcast Alley, the Education Podcast Network and Zune Marketplace.

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  • Rewind: The Dropout Nation Podcast: Why Civil Rights Activists Should Embrace School Reform
    With  old-school civil rights groups complaining about President Barack Obama’s embrace of the school reform movement — and its commitment to improving the quality of education for all children — listen to this Dropout Nation Podcast from February on why their approach to educational equity doesn’t work. The only way educational equity will actually be […]
  • The Dropout Nation Podcast: Five Steps Toward Fostering Great Teachers
    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 Miche […]
  • Rewind: The Dropout Nation Podcast: Building Ties Between School Reformers and Grassroots Activists
    As part of a further discussion about the importance of Beltway school reformers to embrace the grassroots, here is a rewind of a February Dropout Nation Podcast on the subject. Inside-the-Beltway policymaking, important as it is, will mean nothing for improving the educational destinies of children if school reformers don’t reach out to urban groups […]

Recent Comments:

  • MK Cipolla: Steve, You've done an outstanding job clarifying the "reading wars"misinformation. Ruth Kaminski and Roland Good(who are not even teachers) sa...
  • Marion Brady: Good work, Steve....
  • TFT: I used this when I taught K: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/65745/01%20ABC%20Song.mp3 I agree with Steve about sound-to-symbol, as the above dit...
  • Chad Sansing: RiShawn, this is a really thought-provoking piece for me. I think I entered ed school a reasonably successful and highly motivated student; however, I...
  • Alan King: "DC Youth Speak On The Truth About School Reform" Please read it at http://wp.me/pC3Xj-gr...

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