Another thing bonus pay won't fix

A National Education Policy Center (NEPC) review of a report from Georgetown University's Edunomics Lab finds the report misreads or ignores well-established evidence on class size, teacher assessment, pay, and job satisfaction in its proposal to pay bonuses to the "best" teachers in a district for teaching more students. The report proposes paying the top 25 percent of teachers bonuses for accepting up to three more students…

Answer Sheet

Educators alarmed by some questions on N.Y. Common Core tests

By Valerie Strauss April 19 at 12:15 PM

Washington Post…

Drs. Adelman and Taylor write, " Anyone who has spent time in schools can itemize the multifaceted mental health and psychosocial concerns that require attention so that schools and students can succeed. As a result, many stakeholders are interested in enhancing how schools address such concerns. The question is: How should society's schools address the many factors interfering with teaching and learning?" …

Title I -- program, no; funding stream, yes

Does Title I raise test scores? asks Holly Yettick in Education Week. Fifty years after passage of the ESEA, the question remains unanswered, she writes. Evaluation after evaluation has failed to identify decisive, long-lasting impacts of the funding aimed at raising achievement for disadvantaged children. Part of this lack of evidence stems from Title I's design: Researchers face the fundamental problem of defining…

Everyone WINs!

Mary Hendricks-Harris

• Visit me on Solution Tree

Mary Hendricks-Harris is chief academic officer for the Francis Howell School District in Missouri. With more than 20 years of experience, Mary has been a…

A dedicated Long Island teacher is frustrated with this week's ELA state testing.  Here are her observations and thoughts...

As a Child – When an Adult

Jonathan T. Jefferson

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”  1 Corinthians 13:11 King James Version

 

The above quote is a fitting start to this self-study.  I am not a religious man, and I rarely use quotes from religious texts.  As you will read, my…

 A melancholy acknowledgment that our Education Establishment has successfully sabotaged traditional education in virtually every situation.

 Instead, public schools tend to do things in the most chaotic and least efficient ways. You can look at reading, math, history, science, you can look at every grade, and every corner of the school, and you will find that progressive education muddles everything and makes it less…

Clearly, teachers are no longer purveyors of information, but schools can still be incubators for learning.  Schools are places where questions are raised and answers explored, experiences are shared, and collaboration can be expected.  It is the work of schools to develop students as learners, thinkers, and knowers, all with the goal of preparing them to be independent, informed, college and career ready.

In that spirit schools have adopted texts, software, methods,…

Wrong Answer

In an era of high-stakes testing, a struggling school made a shocking choice.

BY RACHEL AVIV…