Education
The Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity has just released a study showing that education reforms involving “accountability, transparency, and parental choice” can catch minority and disadvantaged groups up to the average, while increasing the average overall. Most striking, in my view, is the comparison between a state that really wants to reform and…
Back when TLC actually put on programs that reflected their actual name (The Learning Channel) instead of just reality crap, there once was a show called Connections, hosted by a balding English dude with glasses named James Burke. I loved that show. In it, Burke would link seemingly unrelated items through history. (Like getting from…
Today’s Providence Journal had an interesting story about Lillian Turnipseed, a Providence teacher coach. She is a teacher with 38 years of classroom experience, so it would be natural to believe that she would be a great candidate to tutor new teachers. She is one of Rhode Island’s 17 “induction coaches” responsible for helping the…
An article in today’s Providence Journal describes a familiar aspect of a town’s movement toward receivership that might point to a common contributing factor: A national investment ratings agency, Fitch Ratings, on Thursday downgraded the outlook for Woonsocket. In its report the agency said the city of almost 42,000 people faced a School Department deficit…
Over on the blog for the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, I’ve highlighted the high cost of letting government edge its way into the preschool business.
The big education news this morning is that Rhode Island has won another Race to the Top grant, this time for early childhood education. Details will come later in the day, but it is another step in closing the so-called achievement gap between poor, disadvantaged students and those who, I suppose, are considered advantaged (middle-income,…
The national NEA’s Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching published a report, “Transforming Teaching: Connecting Professional Responsibility with Student Learning,” (PDF) that lays out their vision for modernizing and reforming the teaching profession. The Commission laid out three guiding principles upon which the teaching profession should be based: Student learning is at the center of…
One of the most attractive aspects of imposing Mayoral control–vice school board oversight–via Mayoral Academies or the like is that it is a vehicle by which a school can start fresh by cutting through the red tape and other problems currently hamstringing innovation in our schools. Further, it puts one person–and a visible one at…
The Associated Press is reporting that the state Board of Regents has approved a new evaluation system for RI public elementary and secondary school teachers… Rhode Island teachers who receive poor evaluations for five consecutive years will lose their certification under new rules adopted by state education officials. Teachers will receive 1 of 4 ratings…
Celine Coggins, founder and CEO of Teach Plus, has some questions for 21st Century teacher union leaders. Please read carefully before assuming the worst (regardless of which “side” you are on the issue). What would it mean to put an emphasis on the New Majority? After almost a half-century of baby-boomers as the dominant demographic…