A new report by LFA and Grunwald Associates, with support from AT&T, examines how parents perceive the value of mobile devices, how they see their children using mobiles, and what they think of the possibilities for mobile learning.
Empowering Professionals
Blog Entries
A recent Salon article by Natasha Lennard discusses the central role of women’s issues in the current Wisconsin political saga, including this week’s recall elections. For six months, since Governor Scott Walker sought to strip public workers of collective bargaining rights—among other measures curbing public worker benefits and reducing the state’s expenditures, workers and their advocates have voiced vehement protest, culminating in the recall elections for some of the representatives who supported Walker’s policies. Women’s rights have been central to the debate over teachers’ unions in Wisconsin since the beginning, since Walker targeted teachers and nurses—professions in which the vast majority of workers are women. He exempted the male-dominated (and Republican-leaning) fields of firefighters and police. It’s unclear whether Walker was consciously trying to target women, but, regardless, that is the effect of his policies. ...
Social media in education is a touchy issue, for some good reasons. In utilizing social media, schools, educators and students take certain risks. Consider the consequences when bullying on sites like Facebook creates a distraction at school – or is conducted on school-owned equipment. And think about the (extremely rare) cases in which a social media site contributes to an inappropriate relationship between a teacher and a student (the state of Missouri is so concerned about this potential it has enacted a law that says contact between these parties must be in the public, not private, sphere – in other words, “teachers can set up public Facebook pages or Twitter accounts but can’t reach out to their students as friends or followers, or vice versa”).
There are educational consequences, too. For example, recent research suggests that middle school, high school and college students who are active on Facebook get lower grades, display more narcissistic tendencies, and are more prone to anxiety and depression than students that aren’t.
So why would we promote the use of social media in education?
Last week I attended the first #140edu event, a conference that allowed stakeholders from students to teachers to company owners share their thoughts on “The State of Education NOW” – specifically, the effects of the real-time web on education. And I heard a number of great reasons why social media should be incorporated into a school culture.
Conference co-host Chris Lehmann (@chrislehmann, for those of you on Twitter), principal of Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy, pointed out that social media gives students the power to be “in and of their world,” – for example, the ability to ...
Last week I had the chance to attend the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) annual conference. For those who don’t know, National Board Certification is an advanced teaching credential, achieved through successful completion of a voluntary assessment program designed to recognize effective and accomplished teachers who meet the high standards set by the National Board. The program appears to do a good job of recognizing talent (though of course there are a large number of amazing teachers who have not undergone this certification process) - as Secretary of Education Arne Duncan pointed out to the group, while “National Board Certified teachers [NBCTs] are only 3% of the teaching force, you account for fully 20% of the 2011 Teachers of the Year.”
But especially given that the conference was a gathering of some of America’s best teachers, I was dismayed about some of the frustrations that they expressed. ...
In two recent Salon.com articles (here and here) political commentator David Sirota has pointed out key differences between Finland and the U.S. that he believes account for education discrepancies between these nations. It essentially boils down to differences in: 1) systemic equity, 2) incentives for and recruitment and support of teachers 3) focus on standardized testing, and 4) bipartisan support among all relevant stakeholders.
To open Sirota asks, “How has one industrialized country created one of the world's most successful education systems in a way that is completely hostile to testing”—and, I’ll add, that does not even attach consequence-based evaluation to teachers or schools? For answers, he refers readers to the documentary film "The Finland Phenomenon: Inside the World's Most Surprising School System” which paints the picture of an educational system that completely contrasts with what he calls “the test-obsessed, teacher-demonizing orthodoxy of education ‘reform’ that now dominates America's political debate.”
Some background to set the stage:
It’s clear by now that while the U.S. tests students more than any other nation, our students perform significantly worse in math and science than students in other industrialized countries. Nevertheless, Sirota points out that ...
Over the past few years, the idea of paying teachers a bonus based on student performance (typically on standardized tests) has been called into question for a number of reasons. Some education organizations have expressed concern about the focus it puts on tests they are not convinced accurately reflect student learning. They also question the underlying theory: That teachers can be motivated to work harder for more money; in other words, that they are not already working as hard as they can.
Some outside the education industry share this skepticism. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely expresses concern that these pay systems create odd incentives for teachers and points out that “If you teach, you want to focus on teaching and not on how your salary is changing every day. Not on your chance for a bonus.” Business writer Dan Pink questions how they motivate, believing that educators more than most respect the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
Research also challenges the effectiveness of these systems. Last year, in what many considered the first controlled study of the issue, researchers found that Tennessee’s Project on Incentives in Teaching (POINT), which awarded bonuses of up to $15,000 to teachers who raised student standardized test scores, had no overall impact on student performance – “It simply did not do much of anything.”
This week we got further evidence suggesting that perhaps this is not the path to improved student performance, with a new study by RAND.
In evaluating New York City’s Schoolwide Performance Bonus System (SPBP), RAND found no positive effects of bonuses on student achievement (as measured by performance on ...
ESEA reauthorization is clearly a hot topic in the education community. Recently, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE)—an LFA member—published a white paper outlining their policy recommendations to be included in this legislation. As the white paper puts it, “[a]s Congress works to reauthorize ESEA . . . transforming educator preparation and strengthening accountability for preparation programs is vital to ensuring that high school graduates are college- and career-ready.” So why is educator preparation important—especially in the context of many competing interests and organizations vying for ESEA consideration? ...
Editor's note: Our guest blogger today is Amanda Fitzgerald. Amanda is Director of Public Policy at the American School Counselor Association (ASCA, a Learning First Alliance member).
You have to look hard to find anything about school counseling services or the role of the school counselor in the outdated No Child Left Behind education law. Currently, the only place the definition of the school counselor can even be located is in a small, discretionary grant program called the Elementary and Secondary School Counseling program. This program, housed in the disappearing Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools (OSDFS), started out as a pilot in a school district in Iowa more than a decade ago. The purpose of the three-year grant is simple: To create and enhance a district’s comprehensive school counseling program. Funds can be used for hiring personnel, professional development, and school counseling curricula. Since its inception, the need for this program and school counseling services has grown so much that the Department of Education (ED) receives far more applications than they can come close to considering. ...
We have been hearing a lot recently about the importance of teacher evaluation in ensuring high-quality teachers in every classroom. We have been hearing a bit, though it seems to me much less, about the roles of teacher preparation and professional development in ensuring high-quality teachers in every classroom. But until very recently, we haven’t heard much about the role of hiring decisions in ensuring that high-quality teachers are in every classroom.
To me, it seems like kind of a “duh” statement. If you are serious about raising achievement substantially, you need teachers who can hit the ground running. And also, as has been made clear of late, it can be difficult – and costly – to get teachers out of the classroom once they get there.
But in the past, it seems that some districts have not always taken a close look at their new hires. According to a recent EdWeek article, teacher hiring in some districts typically consists of ...
Teacher evaluation is an extremely hot topic these days. Districts from Houston to DC – and states from Indiana to Washington – are experimenting with new ways to measure teacher performance. But, as Dr. Laura Goe (principal investigator for the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality and research scientist in the Performance Research Group at ETS) pointed out recently at the Learning First Alliance’s annual Leadership Council meeting, “Policy is way ahead of the research in teacher evaluation measures and models.”
In reviewing the research to date on teacher evaluations, Dr. Goe reminded us that we don’t really know which evaluation model and/or combination of measures will identify effective teachers. And what stuck out to me from her presentation: She, a very accomplished researcher on this issue, doesn’t promote any of the models of teacher evaluation currently in use.
Of course, as she pointed out, it is hard to develop or support an evaluation that can measure whether an educator is effective, given that we don’t have a good definition* of what an effective teacher is. As she said, “Much of the research on teacher effectiveness doesn’t define effectiveness at all, though it is often assumed to ...
Last week, the LFA held its annual Leadership Council meeting for our member organizations. The meeting featured a presentation by Mona Mourshed—a partner and researcher at McKinsey and Company—on a great resource for school improvement. Clearly many people feel they have winning formulas for school success, but this McKinsey research presents a truly compelling set of recommendations based on extensive research.
In the report, "How the world's best performing school systems come out on top,"—a follow-up to the 2007 publication by the same name—researchers examined the common attributes of school systems that exhibited continued performance. To do so, they conducted hundreds of interviews and gathered a large body of statistical data to create a comprehensive analysis of global school system reform. From this, they identified reform elements that they feel are replicable for school systems everywhere.
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