In 1963, psychologist John B. Carroll published a short essay, "A Model of School Learning" in Teachers College Record.  Carroll proposed a parsimonious model of learning that expressed the degree of learning (or what today is commonly called achievement) as a function of the ratio of time spent on learning to the time needed to learn.  

The numerator, time spent learning, has also been given the term opportunity to learn.  The denominator, time needed to learn, is synonymous with student aptitude.  By expressing aptitude as time needed to learn, Carroll refreshingly broke through his era's debate about the origins of intelligence (nature vs. nurture) and the vocabulary that labels students as having more or less intelligence. He also spoke directly to a primary challenge of teaching: how to effectively produce learning in classrooms populated by students needing vastly different amounts of time to learn the exact same content. Read More 

Top 20 Inspiration Education Quotes with Pictures  by 

  The most inspiring Education quotes, quotation about education by famous authors, collected by Saying Images. It is said that education is the root of all success, and make us fully human.  

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A Reanalysis of the Effects of Teacher Replacement Using Value-Added Modeling  by Stuart S. Yeh on the Teachers College Record site 

In principle, value-added modeling (VAM) might be justified if it can be shown to be a more reliable indicator of teacher quality than existing indicators for existing low-stakes decisions that are already being made, such as the award of small merit bonuses. However, a growing number of researchers now advocate the use of VAM to identify and replace large numbers of low-performing teachers. There is a need to evaluate these proposals because the active termination of large numbers of teachers based on VAM requires a much higher standard of reliability and validity. Furthermore, these proposals must be evaluated to determine if they are cost-effective compared to alternative proposals for raising student achievement.  

 Conclusion: VAM is not reliable or valid, and VAM-based polices are not cost-effective for the purpose of raising student achievement and increasing earnings by terminating large numbers of low-performing teachers. Read More

   An education advocacy group sued 13 California school districts Thursday, claiming that they have ignored a state law requiring teachers' performance evaluations to include student standardized test scores.

The lawsuit targets the largest school systems in the state that have barred such use of test results through collective-bargaining agreements with teachers unions. These contract provisions are illegal under state law, according to the complaint, which was filed in Contra Costa County.  Read more 

The Relationship Between Kindergarten Social Competence and Future Wellness by Damon E. Jones, Mark Greenberg, and Max Crowley  on the American Journal of Public Health site

We examined whether kindergarten teachers' ratings of children's prosocial skills, an indicator of noncognitive ability at school entry, predict key adolescent and adult outcomes. Our goal was to determine unique associations over and above other important child, family, and contextual characteristics.

Conclusions.

  Kindergartners who share, cooperate and are helpful are more likely to have a college degree and a job 20 years later than children who lack those social skills, according to a new study. 

On June 18th the U.S. Supreme Court decided Ohio v. Clark

When the Obama administration introduced its "Education Blueprint" in 2010, research experts at the National Education Policy Center immediately warned the policies guiding the Department of Education were poorly grounded in research or not based on any objective studies at all. Later in his tenure, Duncan was warned numerous times that using student test scores to evaluate teachers was inaccurate and unfair, yet he persisted in ignoring these warnings. Every time experienced educators challenged Duncan to question his agenda and reconsider policy directions, he responded by ... continuing down the same course.  Read more
 

  Be it noted that a "Race to the Top" is a bizarre metaphor for education in a democratic society. In any race, only a few reach the top, while most are left behind in the dust. That would seem to be a repudiation of the principle of equality of educational opportunity. For sure, it throws the goal of equity away.

For those who want to know what Race to the Top was really about, we have it straight from the horse's mouth. Joanne Weiss wrote an article in 2011 that laid out the big idea that animated the nearly $5 billion program. Weiss was selected by Arne Duncan to run RTTT. Previously she had been CEO of the NewSchools Venture Fund, an organization dedicated to supporting and funding charter schools and charter chains. After the RTTT was completed, Weiss became Duncan's chief of staff. You can't get much closer to the action than Weiss was.  Read more 

  

 How to Run a Meeting  by Gary Olson on the Huffington Post site

We all have experienced interminable meetings: the hour-long meeting to accomplish 10 minutes' worth of work, or the meeting that seems to have no purpose. Whether on the department level or the larger institutional level, inefficiently run meetings consume inordinate amounts of our time and energy.

That is worrisome, given how much of our academic lives we spend in committee work. The key difference between an efficiently run meeting and one that wastes time is whether we conceive of the committee as a structure to accomplish something concrete or as an occasion to fill time.  Read more 

 

 3 Amazing Strategies To Becoming Highly Successful  by Ramon Nuez on the Huffington Post site

Becoming a highly successful person is not a reactive series of events. There is a purposeful strategy. There is a broader vision or a dream that you must be obsessed with and work towards every day.

Unfortunately, you spend the better part of your day managing other people's urgent needs. And while your efforts are appreciated, those accomplishments are doing little to get you closer to your dream.

So what can you do? Plan.  Read more