Teaching

Background

Merit pay; eliminating tenure; new teacher evaluations — how are school, district and state policies affecting how educators and their students perform?

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August 16, 2011

Journalist Steven Brill was on “The Diane Rehm Show” this morning discussing New York City schools’ “Rubber Rooms,” where teachers facing disciplinary action sit and wait — collecting pay checks and taking summers off — in what Brill wrote can be an endless process. Brill is also the author of “Class Warfare: Inside the Fight […]

Five Things To Know About Florida’s New Education Requirements

The new teacher evaluations and merit pay plans school districts are rolling out this year that StateImpact Florida reported yesterday are just a portion of a broad education reform package lawmakers approved last spring. Here’s what to know about the Student Success Act, also known as Senate bill 736:

August 15, 2011

Merit Pay Could Mean Big Rewards for Florida Teachers

The best Miami-Dade teachers could buy a new car with their bonuses this year while most of their colleagues may only be able to replace an alternator with their bonuses. The difference in the size of those checks is an attempt to pay teachers based on their performance and that of their students, also known […]

August 4, 2011

Will Florida Cheat Too?

Florida is tempting cheating by basing teacher salaries on the results of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, Fred Grimm opines in the Miami Herald today. Lawmakers required school districts create pay-for-performance systems where at least half a teacher’s evaluation is determined by an FCAT score. That sets Florida up for the same type of systematic […]

August 3, 2011

Can Schools Depend on Teacher Evaluations?

Amanda Moreno at The Huffington Post attempts to peel apart the arguments used by the education reform advocates against those who oppose high-stakes student testing, performance pay and other measures states are adopting across the country. Moreno’s piece is sure to provoke an argument, but one section seems worthy of discussion. Moreno notes that a […]

July 29, 2011

Five Ways Teachers Are Changing

The National Center for Education Information released its most recent national teacher survey this morning and it shows some changes among the country’s 3.2 million educators. Teachers are “slightly more satisfied” with their working conditions and community status than they were in 2005, 1996, 1990 and 1986 surveys. About 40 percent of teachers hired since […]

July 27, 2011

The Purpose Motive

An animated discussion of what motivates performance — in an era of merit pay and accountability — from author Dan Pink.

Teachers Head for the Door as New Requirements Take Hold

Teachers are saying they have had enough of the politicization of their profession and are retiring in numbers this year, a trend reported across the state in recent weeks. Palm Beach County teacher Margot Collins told the Palm Beach Post why she is leaving after 32 years: “The whole thing is just overwhelming me these […]

July 26, 2011

New FCAT Writing Grades Target “Coached” Essays

The state is stepping up its standards on the written portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test to prepare for coming tougher national standards and to weed out essays that seem coached for better scores, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Finally, the department doesn’t want to see evidence that students have memorized phrases to use […]

July 20, 2011

Why Orange County’s Teacher Pay Experiment Failed

Reading Monday’s RAND Corporation study of New York City’s scrapped teacher merit pay system sounded an awful lot like an interview we had last week with Orange County Superintendent Ronald Blocker and his district’s experience with pay-for-performance last decade. Like all Florida school districts, Orange County is designing a state-mandated merit pay system that bases […]

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