“I would love to have the students grade the teachers at the end of the year as opposed to just the other way around so that teachers get feedback,” Mitt Romney told an audience at the NBC News “Education Nation” Summit in New York a few weeks ago. To a lot of education policy insiders, that seemed to be reference to the increasing use of student surveys as an additional measure for evaluating Continue Reading »

On Friday I proposed that state and local policymakers perform a “premortem” before implementing any further plans to provide teachers with professional development (PD) on the Common Core State Standards.  The Common Core presents an unprecedented challenge for PD, and much less ambitious PD efforts have failed more often than not in the past.  States and districts could spend up to $5 billionContinue Reading »

Tennessee’s ESEA waiver request offers a strikingly honest confession: “The state fully recognizes that, in the past, PD in Tennessee, whether offered by the state, LEAs, or outside organizations, has often been of poor quality.” The request goes on to describe some ways the state plans to do better with professional development on the Common Core State Standards over the next few years, for exContinue Reading »