February 29, 2008

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Vivian Paley Would Be Proud

Filed under: New Teacher Diaries by miss brave @ 6:20 pm

I think I’ve mentioned before that one of the things that disappoints me most about a great many of my students is their total lack of regard for their fellow human beings. They’re always stepping on each other and sitting down on top of each other and writing on each other’s papers and just generally acting like they’re the only tiny people in the whole great big universe. There are days when I just get really sick of their selfishness and the unkind way they treat each other. (more…)

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55/25 Signed by the Governor

Filed under: 55/25 by Steve Perez @ 3:03 pm

Governor Spitzer has signed 55/25 into law. Eligible UFT members now have a 180 day window to opt in. Look for more information to answer your questions about opting in soon.

February 28, 2008

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Seeds of Knowledge

Filed under: Education by Steve Perez @ 5:58 pm

For your viewing pleasure, here is the UFT’s “Seeds of Knowledge” TV ad:

Learn more about the ad campaign.

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A Welcome Return

Filed under: Education by Leo Casey @ 8:53 am

When Sara Mead left Ed Sector and The Quick and The Ed, the educational blogophere lost an intelligent and thoughtful voice. Now she’s back, writing about her passion for early childhood education, at Early Ed Watch.

February 26, 2008

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A Egg Laid At The Quick And The Ed

Filed under: Education by Leo Casey @ 10:15 pm

If you have an hour or two to take a short journey through the history of the poultry industry in order to understand value added measures for teacher evaluation, read this meandering parable of eggs by Kevin Carey. He seems intent on taking argument by analogy to new lengths.

Alternatively, for those of you who don’t have a lot of time to waste, go straight to the heart of the matter with this quote from Lenin: “If you want to make an omelet, you need to break some eggs.” And at least Lenin had the virtue of understanding that ordinary folks like teachers didn’t look forward to being the eggs for his omelet.

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Fordham’s Old-Fashioned Industrialism

Filed under: Charter School by Jonathan Gyurko @ 2:33 pm

With Mark Simon’s thoughtful dismantling of Fordham Institute’s recent “analysis” of teacher labor agreements, there’s little need to spill more ink on the report’s specifics. Yet stepping back from the paper’s repeated call for managerial “flexibility” reveals a confusion of concepts that merits some discussion.

In the report’s rush to stereotype teacher contracts as “old-fashioned, industrial-style” agreements that “treat teachers like industrial-era auto workers,” the authors skip over a key historical and contemporary fact: thanks to the progressive reforms initiated in the late 19th century (and long before teachers won the right to bargain collectively), school districts were established along industrial principles. As a result, when teachers unionized in the1960’s, the first contracts reflected existing structures and procedures including a philosophical divide separating management from labor, delineating principals as leaders and teachers as workers. If, as Fordham provocatively suggests, “an Age of Teacher Professionalism could be at hand,” might it not make better sense to challenge the top-down industrial arrangements that continue to define school district governance and operation? (more…)

February 25, 2008

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We Are Not Commodities

Filed under: Education by Leo Casey @ 12:26 am

Among American sports, baseball occupies an unique place as “America’s pastime.” Part of its charm for working class Americans is that baseball resists the tyranny of the clock and the standardization of time, the work discipline which defines wage labor in the factories of a market society. While basketball, football, soccer and hockey are all races against the clock as much as a competition with another team, baseball has its own distinct rhythms, which are quite different game to game, pitcher to pitcher and batter to batter. If anything, time in baseball conforms to the patterns of nature — the ever hopeful moments of spring, the hot proving ground of the summer, the final and decisive moments of the fall. There even was a time, long valiantly defended by fans of the Chicago Cubs, when baseball games ended with the dusk. Seen in this light, one can understand why baseball has given rise to “traditionalists” and “purists” — defenders of the unique character of baseball — in a way that has never taken place with other American sports.

Take a moment to recall this context, before you read Andrew Tabor’s commentary on the exchange between Kevin Carey and myself over the applicability of the statistical measures of the Oakland A’s Billy Beane to value-added evaluation of teachers in education. (more…)

February 21, 2008

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New York Teacher

Filed under: Roundup by Steve Perez @ 2:09 pm

Read the latest New York Teacher online. Here’s a taste of what you’ll find:

Launching the Keep the Promises coalition, formed to oppose education cuts in the city and state budgets.

Investigating increases of letters in file.

Going from the rubber room back to the classroom.

Testifying on safety guidelines before the New York City Council.

Training School Leadership Teams.

Thanking teachers.

And a look at pensions.

February 20, 2008

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Billyball Strikes Out As Educational Model [Updated]

Filed under: Education by Leo Casey @ 11:10 pm

Ed Sector’s Kevin Carey recently authored a Daily News op-ed, What Public Schools Can Learn From Recent Baseball History, which argued that the experience of the Oakland Athletics’ General Manager Billy Beane in using statistics to gauge baseball talent provided a model for education. The use of value added metrics to evaluate the performance of individual teachers, Carey argued, would apply the rational kernel of Beane’s approach to schools.

It now appears that “Billyball,” as its advocates called Beane’s statistical approach, doesn’t have quite the track record of success Carey reported. (more…)

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Obama Repudiates Pro-Voucher Interpretation Of His Interview

Filed under: Education by Leo Casey @ 9:54 pm

Obama’s campaign apparently reached the same conclusion we did below, and issued the following statement:

Senator Obama has always been a critic of vouchers, and expressed his longstanding skepticism in that interview. Throughout his career, he has voted against voucher proposals and voiced concern for siphoning off resources from our public schools. The misleading reports that have been circulated about Senator Obama’s position took excerpts of an interview out of context.

There’s no joy in voucherville, tonight. Get ready for Whitney Tilson’s fourth flip-flop on the Obama candidacy.

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