All Posts Tagged: 'Teachers'


Conservatives Denounce Obama for Saving Jobs, Economy

November 12th, 2009 | Category: Teacher Quality

At the National Review, Rick Hess and Checker Finn denounce the Obama administration for using stimulus funding to save the jobs of 400,000 teachers and college professors on the grounds that…this was a bad idea. Really:
It’s a fact that employment was an explicit purpose of stimulus funding — Congress said as much — and with [...]

The View From Your Classroom

November 10th, 2009 | Category: Teacher Quality

Today’s “view” comes to us from a technology classroom at Sunset Park  Preparatory Middle School in Brooklyn, N.Y. Thanks for sending in this great photo, Ms. Apfel!
Got a classroom? How’s the view? Send us your photos! Alternatively, upload your photos to our Flickr pool. See previous posts here and here for more on what we’re looking for.

The View From Your Classroom

November 3rd, 2009 | Category: Teacher Quality

Last week, we introduced the new feature “The View From Your Classroom.”  Inspired by Andrew Sullivan’s “View From Your Window,” we asked educators from across the country to show us the what they see from their classrooms. We’ve gotten some wonderful submissions so far and we’re very happy to present this Halloween-inspired classroom “view” from Leslie [...]

The View from Your Classroom

October 27th, 2009 | Category: Teacher Quality

This week we launch a new feature: The View from Your Classroom. Based on Andrew Sullivan’s wildly popular The View from Your Window, we’ll showcase views from classrooms around the country, like the one below from Brian Woodward, an English teacher at Paint Branch High School in Burtonsville, Md. (He’s also ES Senior Policy Analyst Elena Silva’s husband).
We hope you will share [...]

Rifts in RIFs

August 12th, 2009 | Category: Teacher Quality

As school districts faced budget cuts all across the country, they were contractually obligated to issue Reduction in Force (RIF) notifications to teachers they might not be able to afford in 2009–10. The process districts must go through to layoff workers is typically spelled out in the negotiated agreements. Here’s the relevant passage from the [...]

Teachers Unions Don’t Matter

June 30th, 2009 | Category: Teacher Quality

Some say. Others argue that unions matter more than ever, not just for job security but also to push necessary reforms. Our survey last year showed a mix of opinions on the role of unions in improving public schools. Now we’re digging in deeper with a small group of public school teachers from around the [...]

Good Point

February 3rd, 2009 | Category: Teacher Quality

Marguerite Roza of the Center on Reinventing Public Education observes that if the great recession forces school districts to cut their personnel budgets under “last in, first out” rules, they’ll end up firing substantially more teachers than they otherwise would, because the last in tend to be younger and lower-paid and thus you have to [...]

Teachers In Need of Improvement

November 12th, 2007 | Category: Teacher Quality

Richard Kahlenberg* writes about peer review as the better way to get rid of DC’s worst teachers. Since teachers are harder on each other than any principal, he says, having them review each other’s teaching practice, assignments, exams and lesson plans would result in evaluations that “weed out the incompetent while preserving the basic idea [...]

The Most Education-y Oscars Ever?

January 23rd, 2007 | Category: Uncategorized

Let other folks be all about the SOTU; I want to talk about the educational implications of today’s Academy Award nominations. In what may well be an historical first, three out of the 20 acting nominees are nominated for their performances as teachers: Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson and Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett in [...]

When Mom and Dad Don’t Show Up

January 9th, 2007 | Category: Teacher Quality

Sophia Pappas has a really terrific post up about parent engagement and teacher responsibilities. After trying–and failing–to engage the mother of one of her lowest-performing students, Pappas writes:
I grow frustrated and decide instead to focus solely on Tyrique and our work inside the classroom. With our efforts to target his needs in one-on-one, [...]