Teacher Contends N.Y. State Evaluations Fail Accuracy Test – WSJ. This is an interesting article, about a 4th grade teacher that is unhappy with her value added score. From the article it appears that she teaches relatively high performing students, and was surprised when her score showed that her students were far under performing in…
Florida’s teachers get 98 percent effectiveness rating despite schools’ struggles | Tampa Bay Times. This article highlights problems with the non VAM portion of the district teacher evaluation systems.
Today is exciting, in that this website has been refreshed and updated with the 2013-2014 data. Florida is the only state in the country that has this quality of teacher level data publicly available. Take advantage of this data if you are a parent or looking to recruit teachers for charter schools- your school with…
Very interesting analysis that demonstrates why a VAM rating is better than the district rating. Florida: Do neighboring districts have a vastly different teaching workforce? Florida implemented a four-tiered system after passing a new school personnel evaluation law in 2011. Under this new system, teachers are evaluated on student academic growth and classroom practice…
Interesting quote from a Student First Representative realizing that the Value Added component of teacher evaluations is the most reliable means of differentiating good and bad teachers, as compared to the other factors that make up a New York Teacher Evaluation. “Measures other than the state test didn’t allow for differentiation, and it just…
And, even the New York Times weighs in on the importance of teacher quality. Mike Johnston’s mother was a public-school teacher. So were her mother and father. And his godfather taught in both public and private schools. So when he expresses the concern that we’re not getting the best teachers into classrooms or weeding out…
Paul E. Peterson: The Public Turns Against Teacher Tenure – WSJ. Article worth reading, again focusing on the importance of teacher quality. You can’t have good schools without good teachers, but improving the lowest-performing segment of teachers would go a long way. Good teachers are so important to student learning that if roughly the…
Charter schools, VAM data could create a new market for top teachers. Very cool, an article about this website on redefinEd, by Travis Pillow.
Why Do Americans Stink at Math? – NYTimes.com. Interesting article that highlights what should be a truism, teachers can only teach what they themselves have learned and understand: weak math teachers equal difficulty with students learning math. Interesting contract with Japanese and American math instruction.
Americans Think We Have the World’s Best Colleges. We Don’t. – NYTimes.com. Another reason to be concerned about having excellent k12 teachers, the deficit in k12 student performance compared to international performance, is also present in college graduates. Only 18 percent of American adults with bachelor’s degrees score at the top two levels of numeracy,…
