Connections

• Danielson Framework conference: UFT shows what it’s REALLY about | United Federation of Teachers

  tags: Teacher evaluation

  • “If used correctly, the methodology, named for its creator Charlotte Danielson, can help foster an honest, professional conversation about instruction that should be at the core of the evaluation process,” said UFT Vice President and Teacher Center Director Catalina Fortino

• Reports: Don’t Forget Professional Development in Evaluation – Teacher Beat – Education Week

  tags: Teacher evaluation

  • It isn’t enough to just hire and fire your way to a better teaching corps. Teaching quality should be looked upon as a mutable characteristic that most teachers can and should strive to improve, with the proper supports.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The recently released preliminary findings around the Measures of Effective Teaching study provide some important insight into teacher evaluation. One of the most critical is the predictive validity of the Danielson Framework for Teaching.*

However, I was struck by this statement:

“…the teachers whose students show gains on the state tests also tend to see unusual gains on other tests. Because the BAM test focuses more on conceptual understanding and uses a very different format than most state tests, this would imply that those teachers who are showing strong value-added scores on the state test are not simply “teaching to the test”. Their impact seems to generalize to other tests as well.”

This suggests that students who engage with content in a meaningful manner (i.e. not just memorize in preparation for testing) will still do well on low-level standardized tests. Will this finding influence test-prep mania that has gripped our schools?

Read the entire preliminary report – download here.

*full disclosure: I am a consultant for the Danielson Group

” … that’s the kind of engagement you want to have happen … I can’t test that. But that is self-evident assessment. We know that is an authentic assessment of learning. We have a lot of data but I think sometimes we [need to] go beyond the data to the real truth …”

Follow Alex’s round-the-world trip in this amazing video …

• Real Cost of Teacher Layoffs is Our Future

  tags: teachers educational reform

  • By now, the pattern is impossible to ignore: More than 30,000 teachers in California received layoff warnings last spring; another 300 prepared for unemployment in Milwaukee; in Chicago, 1,000 more were looking for work, and by the time school started in September some 60,000 teachers across the country had lost their jobs.

     
  • Certain ramifications are obvious: Fewer teachers equals larger classes and less attention devoted to each student, even as the demand for improved outcomes mounts.

  • Some of the less apparent results of school layoffs could be at least as damaging. Thousands of jobless teachers – and their kids — no longer have health insurance. Many are in their 30s and 40s, traditionally the prime years for earning money toward retirement. But not now.

     

  • “In my 20 years in education, I have never seen the devaluation of education as I have recently,” said Lloyd Verstuyft, superintendent of Texas’s Southwest Independent School District.

     

  • “You can’t cut $4 billion from public education and not feel it. Schools are not only places of teaching and learning, they are a place of support. That is being chipped away now, and it will have consequences.”

     

  • “The public has to make clear that they expect schools to be funded,” she said. “If we ever expect to get into a better economic climate, education is not what we can cut and get there. Education needs to be looked at for what it is – the driver of everything that we’re trying to do as a nation.”

     

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Courtesy of EdWeek, the ESEA Renewal debate in side-by-side comparison:

• Harvard Education Letter: Common Core Myths

  tags: commoncore Standards education Common Core

  • The Common Core State Standards are one of the most significant initiatives in American education in decades. Yet the swiftness with which they were developed and adopted has left educators uncertain about exactly what they are. A number of myths about the standards have emerged.
  • Myth #1 The Common Core State Standards are a national curriculum.
  • Myth #2 The Common Core State Standards are an Obama administration initiative.
  • Myth #3 The Common Core standards represent a modest change from current practice.
  • Myth #4 States cannot implement the Common Core standards in the current budget climate.
  • Myth #5 The Common Core State Standards will transform schools.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• Is the Charter School Boom Really Good for Kids?

  tags: charter education educational reform charter schools

  • While charters are designed to facilitate innovation and academic success for students, not all charters are created equal, so the boom might not be entirely good news for kids.
  • overall, charters have a mixed achievement record. Stanford’s 2009 CREDO study, which remains the largest comparison study of charters and traditional public schools, found that only 17 percent of charters performer better than their traditional peers.
  • while they offer more personalized learning experiences, charters aren’t immune to the pressures of standardized testing
  • The question too few people are asking is what’s happening in those highly effective charter schools to make them work so well? Instead of ensuring that those ideas are passed back to traditional schools and to other charters, districts are handing out new charters like candy, creating an atmosphere where pretty much anyone with some semblance of a plan can open a school.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

One of my favorite authors (Lauren McLaughlin) has a new book out soon – looks very cool, and coming right as my daughter stresses about whether or not to make the SATs part of her college applications …

I realize that food is a tremendous source of inequity in the world … some folks have too much, some too little. However, I decided to write about the connections we share through food traditions.

Food is an important aspect of culture and connection. In our diverse household, we dye easter eggs and hide matzoh in the spring. We eat latkes and Christmas cookies in the winter. Food is an important part of our celebrations and a way to maintain a connection to our family’s diverse ethnic background.

When we travel the world, food allows us to explore other cultures … both for good and ill. I was adventurous, eating market-stall dumplings in Beijing, only to pay the price for several days after (eating undercooked meat!). We played it “safe” in  Egypt, ordering pizza from a very western hotel room service, only to find it was not any kind of pizza we had ever met. We’ve endured more traditional English breakfast sausages than can be counted …

But mostly the food adventures have been glorious. In Cairo, when I tried Turkish coffee for the first time, every waiter came out of the kitchen to see how I liked it. In Athens, my daughter and I ventured into a grocery store to buy olives and pistachio nuts – and then sat by the water at sunset eating one of the best meals we’d ever had. We sipped high cream tea with friends in Winchester, munched on croissants in the Dordogne, and sipped red wine in Rome.

Some of my favorite moments have come when my daughter realized as she ate noodles in China, or pasta in Italy, that we all share so many foods – but it’s a culture’s individualization through spices, sauces, and cooking styles, that make them unique. We are the same and we are different.

I pity Americans who visit another country and spend a moment in McDonald’s or Burger King. The whole point of traveling is to see someplace new, experience another culture – step out of your ordinary routine world for a little while. It will return, soon enough.