How is it that a teacher known for excellence could be rated "ineffective"?

The convoluted statistical model that the state uses to evaluate how much a teacher "contributed" to students' test scores awarded her only one out of 20 possible points. These ratings affect a teacher's reputation and at some point are supposed to be used to determine a teacher's pay and even job status.  The evaluation method, known as value-added modeling, or VAM, purports to be able to predict through a complicated computer model how students with similar characteristics are supposed to perform on the exams - and how much growth they are supposed to show over time - and then rate teachers on how much their students compare to the theoretical students. 

1) Teachers unions had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad night.

2) The Common Core dog that didn't bark.

3) The Golden State's heated school chief contest.

4) Republican governors in blue states.

5) Whither federal policy?
This was not an election about education. But it should be no surprise that the nation's schools and colleges, which together constitute the largest piece of state spending, will be front and center when determining what the results mean for the nation's families. 

Educators searching for solutions to childhood bullying in research articles and books likely have been frustrated in their efforts to discern an overarching set of empirically-supported core principles or strategies to use, not only to prevent bullying problems in school systems, but also to respond to specific incidents of bullying. While it is arguably helpful to know what should be done when peer victimization is an abstract or systemic problem, it is much more challenging to respond when an individual student is being brutalized and needs a time-sensitive, relevant solution. Englander's book is particularly appealing in her ability to address those needs, as well as anticipate the complexities of the world of digital communications and its intersection with the historical prevalence of childhood bullying.

Consider the front page cover that brazenly and in bold print decries (and implies that our teachers are) Rotten Apples and graphically displays a gavel that is about to smash an apple that looks healthy. Why? Is this depiction chosen to magnify the number of teachers who are ineffective? Internally the cover story leads with the caption, "It's really difficult to fire a BAD TEACHER" and  a picture of four apples,  one of which is clearly rotten. Is this picture to suggest that 25% of our teachers are harming students? Might they spoil their still-healthy colleagues? If a picture is worth a thousand words, 

I am furious, incensed, and irate at your November 3, 2014, cover depicting every American public school educator as a Rotten Apple and a billionaire from Silicon Valley as the savior of American public schools.

By now every teacher in America has seen Time magazine's incendiary cover featuring a gavel poised to smash an apple with the headline, "Rotten Apples: It's Nearly Impossible to Fire a Bad Teacher."1 Written by journalist Haley Sweetland Edwards, the article reduces the complexity of educational reform to the simplistic claim that if we could just fire bad teachers, we would dramatically improve the quality of American public schools. A high definition photograph of three plump, juicy, red apples next to a rotten brown one engenders an almost visceral reaction as readers learn about the supposedly insurmountable teacher tenure laws that keep these "bad apples" in our nation's schools.

While Edwards' article and its dehumanizing images are disturbing to teachers and scholars of education, like me, here is why this story should matter to everyone.

 Florida embraced the school accountability movement early and enthusiastically, but that was hard to remember at a parent meeting in a high school auditorium here not long ago.  Parents railed at a system that they said was overrun by new tests coming from all levels - district, state and federal. Some wept as they described teenagers who take Xanax to cope with test stress, children who refuse to go to school and teachers who retire rather than promote a culture that seems to value testing over learning.

Our study uncovered the multidimensional nature of gun possession across nearly five million unique data points over a ten year period (2001-2011). Specifically, we automated odds ratio calculations for 55 risk behaviors to assemble a comprehensive table of associations for every behavior combination. Downstream analyses included the hierarchical clustering of risk behaviors based on their association "fingerprint" to 1) visualize and assess which behaviors frequently co-occur and 2) evaluate which risk behaviors are consistently found to be associated with gun possession. From these analyses, we identified more than 40 behavioral factors, including heroin use, using snuff on school property, having been injured in a fight, and having been a victim of sexual violence, that have and continue to be strongly associated with gun possession.

Cognitive performance during high-stakes exams can be affected by random disturbances that, even if transitory, may have permanent consequences for long-term schooling attainment and labor market outcomes. We evaluate this hypothesis among Israeli high school students who took a series of high stakes matriculation exams between 2000 and 2002.  The results suggest that random disturbances during high-stakes examinations can have long-term consequences for schooling and labor market outcomes, while also highlighting the drawbacks of using high-stakes examinations in university admissions.

In New York, the out-of-sight, out-of-mind ban is enforced predominantly at schools with metal detectors-the same schools that could benefit the most from technology-friendly policies.  

A recent survey from the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development found that two-thirds of respondents believe students should be allowed to bring cellphones to school and use them as a learning resource in class. Twenty-two percent of respondents said the devices should be allowed but not used in class, while just 12 percent said they should be banned altogether.

Prohibiting them from bringing cellphones to class could equate to a missed opportunity for needy kids, says Larissa Pahomov, a Philadelphia teacher who works in a public high school that gives every student a laptop.

 

Thanks to Right-Wing Lobbying, We're Teaching a Generation of Kids to Doubt Science and History  by Ewan McMurry on the AlterNet blog

Such was the decision of the Gilbert Public School Board, which voted 3-2 last week to "edit" an Honors biology textbook to bring it into accordance with a two-year old law requiring all education materials in the state to "promot[e] childbirth and adoption over elective abortion." The biology textbook in question isn't a sex-ed coursebook, and it actually presented a survey of options from abstinence to abortofacients, but lawmakers didn't seem too bothered by the details: the purpose of Arizona's textbook law was to create situations just like this one, and the joy at finally being able to implement it was palpable.

 

 Ed Law Briefly: School Officials Had No Actual Knowledge of Harassment  by  The Practical Education Law Team on the Real Clear Education website

 The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court's decision favoring the district. The court found it legally noteworthy that school officials had no actual knowledge of the harassment at the time, and only learned the full facts after the mistreatment stopped. The parents did not present any evidence to the contrary. Therefore, citing a 2003 case, the court noted that a school district cannot be held responsible unless it is fully aware of the harassment and intentionally fails to do anything meaningful (deliberately indifferent) to intervene.