Archive for the ‘
education reform ’ Category
Current education reform efforts are spread over many different points of emphasis. Prominent among these is the effort to improve teacher quality. By itself, improving teacher quality is a multifaceted, complex program of innovations, including attracting more high performers to the profession, increasing the rigor of teacher education programs, differentiating workplace roles, and varying compensation based on performance. A central pinch point in achieving these goals is teacher supervision. It is a pinch point because all the elements of improving teacher quality rely on teacher feedback that is relevant, accurate, credible and fair. Historically, delivering this kind of feedback has been difficult and largely unrealized.
Context
In thinking about teacher supervision, let’s first consider context. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, the average public elementary school in the United States serves about 500 students. At a student-teacher ratio of 30:1, about seventeen regular classroom teachers would staff a school this size. In addition, let’s assume that the school has no specialists other than one special education teacher for a total of eighteen professional staff. Let’s work with this configuration as our prototype as the same organizational principles related to teacher supervision scale up or down pretty well for larger or smaller schools. The same principles apply to secondary schools as well, though with more complications due to more differentiated staffing models.
Of the eighteen teachers in our prototypical school, three or four are likely to be master teachers, one or two are likely to be struggling, three or four are likely to be marginally effective, and three or four are relatively new to the teaching profession. Everyone else is meeting expectations pretty consistently. In this school, like most others, there are a variety of performers and a variety of needs for improvement. That’s life. (more…)
Category:
education reform |
4 Comments »
Tags: consequences, education reform, effective teaching, feedback, performance standards, systematic approach, teacher ladders, teacher observations, teacher quality, teacher supervision
As a former teacher, principal and assistant superintendent, I know very well that educators can tend to have their own language that makes non-educators’ eyes glaze over. Differentiated instruction, common core, instructional rounds, etc. could all describe a range of activities that have nothing to do with teaching or learning.
Translating the education-ease for a public audience can be a tricky endeavor. We want the public to understand the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of the strategy or intervention, but we don’t want to oversimplify the work. Unfortunately, the term ‘educator evaluation’ suffers from an oversimplification. Whether or not the oversimplification is justified in many cases, it is important that we begin to redefine the term.
The term ‘evaluation’ often brings up images of an inspection or other high-pressure situations in which there is a black and white decision made: yes or no, thumbs up or thumbs down, raise or no raise, continuation of employment or lay-off. When the evaluation is put in the context of teaching, the assumption is made that teachers are being graded as good or bad. Evaluation can and should be something a lot more than a grade or ranking.
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Category:
Chalkboard Project, CLASS Project, education reform, teacher performance evaluations |
5 Comments »
Tags: Arne Duncan, CLASS Project, educator evaluation, Kate Dickson, Oregon, teacher evaluation, Teacher Incentive Fund, TIF
WHAT IS A ‘VALUE-ADDED MODEL’ AND HOW IS ‘VAM’ BEING USED IN OREGON?
We are continuing our webinar series with a conversation about value-added models–a complex statistical tool for measuring student growth. The discussion will include an explanation of what VAM is, how it is different than other measures of school performance, and a bit of national and local context around how it is being used in education.
Each of these virtual brown bags are designed to provide you with relevant news about education issues and to hear first-hand accounts of ongoing developments from local, state and national policy experts and educators.
JOIN US FOR THIS CONVERSATION.
TOPIC: What is a value-added model?
WHEN: Wednesday, February 22, 12:00 PM- 1:00 PM
WHERE: Join us online at http://bit.ly/yFz1V4
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Category:
education reform |
1 Comment »
Tags: Andrew Dyke, ECONorthwest, Kathleen Sundell, Kevin Booker, Mathematica, Salem-Keizer, Teacher Incentive Fund, TIF, value-added measures, value-added models, VAM
Jen Barth, preschool parent, co-founder of “Books Make it Better,” and blogger, shares what she is doing to make education better in Oregon.
I’m writing this post on the final stretch of a plane ride back to Portland from Washington, DC, returning from a UN Foundation conference, where I was invited to speak on a panel about Books Make It Better, a grassroots early literacy program I started last Fall. As our plane heads home towards Portland, it strikes me what a difference just one year can make in the realm of personal activism.
Let me back up and introduce myself. I’m not an educator. I’m not a policy maker. I haven’t even been to Salem (yet). I’m simply a preschool parent, and relative Oregon newcomer, who decided last year to choose action over apathy as I began learning more about the many challenges facing Oregon’s schools.
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Category:
community involvement, Early Learning, education reform |
4 Comments »
Tags: Books Make it Better, Jen Barth, Mom Congress, OregonMom1, Reach out and read, The children's book bank
With the recent release of the data surrounding Oregon high school graduation rates, it is clear there is work to do. Although this year’s graduation rate did increase by one percent, this means that two in three students are graduating in four years, and one in three are failing to.
According to an article on The Oregonian’s website, Governor Kitzhaber “has vowed to shine a bright light on the state’s chronically low graduation rate to spur more intensive efforts to improve it.” Kitzhaber would like to obligate districts to use “achievement compacts,” which would require a district to spell out results it aims to deliver, creating a more informed conversation about how well Oregon’s schools are preparing every student for citizenship, college or career. Kitzhaber also aims to improve grad rates by encouraging less successful districts to model themselves after more successful districts.
Kate Dickson of the Chalkboard Project suggests that if we are serious about increasing the high school graduation rate for Oregon students, and assuring that students are prepared for college and career, an essential first step is to ensure that there is an effective teacher in every classroom. Effective teachers have more impact on student achievement than any other in-school factor.
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Category:
education reform |
12 Comments »
Tags: Chalkboard Project, Kate Dickson, Kitzhaber, Oregon high school graduation rates, The Oregonian
T.J. Chandler is the founder of EdZapp, Oregon’s statewide online employment application, and is now the Regional Director of Operations for Netchemia, LLC working with K-12 teacher and administrator evaluations. T.J. was formerly the Director of Business Applications for the New York City Board of Education, and has worked with over one hundred school districts across the country on operational and human capital issues. T.J. holds degrees from Willamette University and Princeton University.
As some celebrate the 10th anniversary of NCLB and others curse it, I ask, “What have we learned from it?” In particular, I am intrigued by certain parallels between evaluating “student achievement” and “teacher performance.”
Some Parallels
Like the discussions 10-15 years ago about students “falling behind” and “dropping out,” policy-makers realize that there is a problem with teacher effectiveness and attrition. The tough part for both problems, of course, is specifying–in meaningful and legally-defensible terms–which individuals are having trouble, and even more importantly how to help them improve.
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Category:
curriculum, Early Learning, education achievement gap, education reform, student achievement, Student Success, Teacher Effectiveness, teacher performance evaluations, teaching strategies |
1 Comment »
Tags: Danielson Framework for Teaching, EdZapp, Head Start, INTASC, NCLB, New Teacher Project, T.J. Chandler, teacher evaluations, value-added model, VAM, Widget Effect
When it first came out in 2001, I, like most teachers, saw NCLB as a direct threat to public education. The day after the Obama presidential election, there was a movement afoot among teachers in my building to print out ESEA/ NCLB and have a burying ceremony in the school garden. Our ceremony never came to fruition, and neither did the immediate revision of the act that has all but buried educators.
The Negatives
The problem with NCLB was its reliance on one test to judge the quality of schools. The judgments were harsh and extreme; they ranged from mandatory tutoring, to closing schools. There were no funds provided to mitigate poor programs. If politicians really had student success in mind, there would have been more money to help struggling performers, or, the measure would have targeted individual student progress over time. The punitive nature of NCLB focused on what we in teaching try to stay away from: motivation through threats.
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Category:
education reform, funding, student achievement, Teacher Effectiveness, teacher performance evaluations, teaching strategies |
1 Comment »
Tags: achievement gaps, Blueprint for Reform, ESEA, evaluation teaching, NCLB, No Child Left Behind, Quality of Schools, Ruth Wallin
Nearly 60 years ago, the court ruling Brown v. Board of Education recognized that “education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. It is the very foundation of good citizenship.” The ruling also made the claim that desegregation would benefit all students and that providing students with inclusive educational opportunities from an early age is crucial to achieving the nation’s educational and civic goals. Years later, however, we continue to struggle with this issue. Some people still ask the question: what kinds of benefits stem from a diverse classroom?
As a product of a racially diverse public school system outside of Chicago, I believe that my classroom experience provided me with incalculable educational and civic benefits. However, I find measuring and identifying those benefits extremely difficult. While growing up, it never occurred to me that I was actively breaking down racial stereotypes or becoming a more culturally sensitive person. Instead, I found that being around students and teachers who were different than me was just the norm. In a way, I believe that that is the overall intended outcome: being comfortable and motivated to participate in a heterogeneous and multifaceted society. Right?
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Category:
education reform, minorities in education |
4 Comments »
Tags: Arne Duncan, brown vs. board of ed, k-12 schools, racial diversity, racial isolation, Secretary of Ed, student achievement
Eduardo Angulo, Executive Director of the Salem-Keizer Coalition for Equality, shares his thoughts on public education reform in Oregon.
Oregonians’ drive for public education reform has taken many years to arrive at its climax. Finally, we are in the middle of it and are being driven by Governor Kitzhaber’s bold actions. He put it best when he said; “I am intending to wear out my welcome to make sure we have equal education for all our children in Oregon.”
In the past four years, I have been in the middle of it all by being part of the three-year Harvard-Wallace Foundation Education Reform Initiative with the four largest school districts in Oregon and Massachusetts. I was also part of the Oregon Race to the Top Design Team to develop the state’s federal school reform grant application. This past August, I was part of the Governor’s LearnWorks Team to develop the new Outcome Based Budgeting and Proficiency Based Teaching and Learning Framework to guarantee that every student is successful – from birth until college graduation.
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Category:
education reform |
5 Comments »
Tags: Eduardo Angulo, education reform, Salem-Keizer Coalition for Equality
“The essential question is not, ‘How busy are you?’ but ‘What are you busy at?’”
~Oprah Winfrey
It’s probably safe to say that public education professionals in Oregon have never been so busy. They have larger class sizes, fewer staff to do more work due to budget cuts, a need to invest time in professional development to keep pace with changing technology in the field, and strong pressure to adopt fundamental changes to boost student achievement.
In a word, they are being expected to continuously improve at a time of historic cutbacks in education funding.
Needless to say, these are challenging times. But with the third year of Sisters School District’s CLASS grant under way, a significant culture change is evident. Teachers are operating less in silos, and collaborating across grades and school levels to close gaps in student knowledge. They are more open to being mentored and evaluated by peers, and see these evaluations as valuable tools for improving their instructional practices. Student achievement data is posted prominently in the District office and in all teacher lounges, and helps shape what goes on in classrooms.
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Category:
Chalkboard Project, CLASS Project, education reform, education technology, student achievement, teacher compensation, teacher performance evaluations, Uncategorized |
12 Comments »
Tags: CLASS Project, Merry Ann Moore, Sisters School District, student achievement
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