Education
This morning, I listened as the new WPRO Morning News team of Tara Granahan and Andrew Gobeil went after Education Commissioner Deborah Gist for her proposal to hire up to 50 retired educators (teachers, principals, etc.) as 90 day consultants to help implement the programs funded via Race to the Top. Earlier, Granahan and Gobeil–apparently…
Rick Hess offers some thoughts on teacher evaluations and the polarization that occurs whenever the topic is discussed: [O]ur teacher evaluation and pay debates are fought between two bizarre poles. One camp insists that teachers, for some reason that escapes me, can’t possibly be evaluated fairly. Any tough-minded effort to gauge teacher performance or reward…
(H/T Ian D.) Well, it is something he knows about…. Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy has a new title- visiting fellow at Brown University’s Institute for Brain Science. He’ll be spending his time advocating for advancements in the field of traumatic brain injury….Kennedy will deliver two lectures on the Brown campus during each year of his…
Not surprisingly, a majority of Little Compton parents would prefer to keep the town’s students flowing through one of the state’s best high schools, in Portsmouth, rather than move them over to Tiverton’s facility right next door. I’ve explained why I would feel the same, were I among them, but the number of reasons that…
My patch column, this week, joins two topics related to education in Rhode Island: The connection is indirect, to be sure, but the controversy over an old prayer banner in Cranston High School West brings to mind the Chafee administration – and not (only) because Rhode Island’s new governor has me so worried that I…
Justin’s post from yesterday mentioned that Providence Mayor Angel Tavares’ decision to send dismissal notices to all current Providence teachers relates directly to the cost of substitutes. According to data available from the Rhode Island Department of Education website, Mayor Tavares has picked a reasonable area for reform, as the per-pupil costs of substitute teachers…
New Warwick School Committee member Eugene Nadeau has been quoted in the ProJo and stated this morning on the WPRO Morning News that he is against the new School Funding formula: Eugene Nadeau, a member of the Warwick School Committee, said the formula is a “sweetheart deal” for Providence, which he said will receive five…
The specifics could be adjusted elsewhere, but the general attitude that Julia Steiny describes at Blackstone Valley Preparatory Charter School, although there’s no revolutionary “paradigm change,” as the education academics like to contrive, seems like a profound shift. Note, especially, the handling of the teaching professionals: … at Blackstone Valley the two-teacher classroom [with more…
Anchor Rising readers are already familiar with the explanation of the problem basic problem with public-sector unions in a democracy that Andrew Klavan offers in the following video, but it’s worth a watch nonetheless: This article describing why Providence Mayor Angel Tavares had to give teachers termination notices, rather than layoff notices, provides excellent evidence…
Earlier, I mentioned Julia Steiny’s contribution to the belated march of red flags throughout the Providence Journal. Steiny’s piece is interesting because she attempts to draw a line through the ranks of teachers: … in the shrill, righteous rhetoric, sometimes screamed by both the left and the right, teachers are lumped together as if they…