I love this idea
Great little piece from a California newspaper, The Press-Enterprise, on a novel approach to teachers' professional development by the Menifee school district. For four years, the district has been sending teams of coaches into schools to work with selected group of teachers--not just for a day at a time, but for six weeks.
We'll work on tracking down the costs of such a venture.
Randi's bar exam
We are supportive of the AFT's proposal to launch a bar exam for teachers...so we were dismayed to read in an interview that Randi Weingarten did with Claudio Sanchez that she's thinking it will be five years before any such exam can be developed.
On ideologues in ed reform
Provocative op-ed in Dropout Nation in which TFA alum Matt Barnum questions the viability of Wendy Kopp's kinder, gentler approach to ed reform (think Michelle Rhee opposite). Barnum thinks the level of change that's needed requires some good old fashioned ideologues. Perhaps so, but isn't it just as valuable to spawn them as to be one?
and finally,
In honor of Super Bowl week (go Ravens!)
NCTQ has long been pointing out that it is easier to get into some ed schools than it is to qualify academically to play college football. So our interest was piqued by a new paper out today from the Center for American Progress, in which Jerome Lucido argues that the nation's college and universities need to emulate the practice of the NFL by imposing a set of operating rules on its franchises (and that no one team would be willing to impose on its own).
Writes Lucido:
{A higher ed "league"} would ensure better and more relevant public information about college characteristics and college choice, clear and consistent recruitment and application guidelines, full disclosure and uniform methods in
Randi's bar exam
We are supportive of the AFT's proposal to launch a bar exam for teachers...so we were dismayed to read in an interview that Randi Weingarten did with Claudio Sanchez that she's thinking it will be five years before any such exam can be developed.
On ideologues in ed reform
Provocative op-ed in Dropout Nation in which TFA alum Matt Barnum questions the viability of Wendy Kopp's kinder, gentler approach to ed reform (think Michelle Rhee opposite). Barnum thinks the level of change that's needed requires some good old fashioned ideologues. Perhaps so, but isn't it just as valuable to spawn them as to be one?
and finally,
In honor of Super Bowl week (go Ravens!)
NCTQ has long been pointing out that it is easier to get into some ed schools than it is to qualify academically to play college football. So our interest was piqued by a new paper out today from the Center for American Progress, in which Jerome Lucido argues that the nation's college and universities need to emulate the practice of the NFL by imposing a set of operating rules on its franchises (and that no one team would be willing to impose on its own).
Writes Lucido:
{A higher ed "league"} would ensure better and more relevant public information about college characteristics and college choice, clear and consistent recruitment and application guidelines, full disclosure and uniform methods in
the determination and delivery of student financial assistance, educational quality measured by student learning and student readiness to realize personal and societal goals, and the nurturance of the talent in the K-12 pipeline.