English teacher John Keating, played by Robin Williams, inspired his tony prep school students in the classic film, Dead Poet’s Society. But I always wondered: Could Mr. Keating hack it in a lower-performing, higher-poverty school?

A recent working paper indicates that, yes, highly effective teachers continue to be highly effective when they switch schools, regardless of the new school’sContinue Reading »

How to measure teacher effectiveness. A California report commissioned by the state urges districts, among other things, to stay away from using student test scores in teacher evaluations. While authors cite concerns about reliability and accuracy, educators might feel differently: Our recent survey of teachers showed that more than half agree that student achievement is a good way to measure tContinue Reading »

State policies on teacher quality. Sara Mead examines new teacher effectiveness laws in 21 states, including regulations regarding evaluations and personnel decisions like dismissals and retention efforts. The report includes state-by-state summaries. (Bellwether Education)

(Most) everything everyone thinks about education. Three-fourths of Americans believe that the Common Core State StContinue Reading »

Nicholas Kristoff wrote yesterday about the “landmark” new teacher value-added study from Chetty, Friedman and Rockoff. It’s worth being clear about why the study has garnered so much attention. It’s not because it shows that teachers matter. Everyone knew or believed that already. It’s because it shows that teachers vary in how much they matter. And, for the firstContinue Reading »

To fire or not to fire. Eric Hanushek and Diane Ravitch are debating the pros and cons of removing the lowest-performing teachers from schools: (Hanushek says student achievement will be on par with our global counterparts if we remove the bottom 5 to 10 percent of teachers; Ravitch says we should focus more on attracting and training top-notch candidates, rather than firing current teachers.) Continue Reading »

The Senate’s ESEA Reauthorization bills (the old Harkin bill and the newer Harkin-Enzi version) elicited a familiar reaction from interest groups representing teachers, principals, and school administrators and from conservative eduwonks following the legislation: federal overreach.

You have Rick Hess: “I’m not worried about going ‘back’ to 1994… partly because some of the ‘retreats’ areContinue Reading »

If you haven’t heard, Senators Harkin and Enzi introduced a substitute version of their ESEA Reauthorization bill today. While I’m disheartened and disappointed by these changes, Secretary Duncan released a more muted statement on the new bill. As a public service, Quick and the Ed is going to break down the key changes so you don’t have to re-read the 860-page bill again (seeContinue Reading »

Earlier, I praised the Harkin-Enzi ESEA Reauthorization bill’s handling of teacher and principal evaluations, noting that they found a very small middle ground between the Obama administration’s waiver package and the Senate Republican plan. Well, strike that. Guess Senators Harkin and Enzi really aren’t worried about what I think of their plan.

A substitute has been introduced and posteContinue Reading »

Harkin-Enzi’s ESEA reauthorization bill attempts to find a middle ground on teacher and principal evaluations. On one hand, you have the Senate Republican plan supported by Secretary of Education-turned-Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) that would give states the option to develop these kinds of evaluation systems. On the other, you have the Obama administration’s ESEA waiver package that requiresContinue Reading »