Blogs, forums, chat rooms, listservs—the choices go on and on. These can be valuable resources for finding alternative opinions and information about almost anything. From general private school news to just needing a quick laugh to fuel the rest of your day, blogs can remind you that you're not alone in the all-too often chaotic world of private-independent education.
This month we’re going to expand upon our teacher evaluation theme, linking you to some of the hottest articles starting conversations across the Web.
New Teacher Evaluation System Is Madness—“Once again Diane Ravitch is out advocating for teachers. If you are a teacher reading this post you really ought to think about the implications of what is happening to the teaching profession in our country. As a side note I was talking to a male teacher at our school-site today and he told me how his test scores have been on the rise and how he feels “safe” because of that. I told him that was nice and walked away thinking how warped education has become.”
Teacher Evaluation Reform Digest—This is a daily digest of articles about teacher evaluation.
Bad Teachers, Or Bad Ratings?—“How useful are the city’s newly released teacher-evaluation scores? Let’s say you’re a hypothetical parent—maybe me. You go to the Times’ summation of the ratings for your child’s school, and find that they look pretty bad. In English, none of the teachers managed to score above average; only a small minority of the math teachers did. A teacher your child loves and seems to be learning a lot from was in the high single digits, percentile-wise. This is surprising, if not alarming, because your child’s school, as evidenced by a brutal middle-school admissions process, is one of the more highly regarded in Manhattan, a reputation that is backed up by other statistics.”
No Student Left Untested—“Last week, the New York State Education Department and the teachers’ unions reached an agreement to allow the state to use student test scores to evaluate teachers. The pact was brought to a conclusion after Governor Andrew Cuomo warned the parties that if they didn’t come to an agreement quickly, he would impose his own solution (though he did not explain what that would be.)”
