- Seattle’s skyline sparkled on Tuesday evening, as education-reform stars convened for the first annual PIE-Net “Eddy” awards. Congratulations to the Common Core State Standards Initiative, which claimed “Game Changer of the Year,” to Tennessee’s teacher-tenure bill, which took home “Best Kept Secret,” and to all the winners.
- Teachers deserve more than “drive-by” evaluations. In its new report, Education Trust lays out the need for and dimensions of a smarter, more appropriate teacher-evaluation system. Complete with prose written in plain English and a user-friendly layout, this primer could be helpful to policymakers everywhere.
- “In the end, extending the school day is the easy part. Ensuring that the time spent in class is focused and that the extra time adds real value” is where choices get hard, writes Kathleen Porter-Magee in this week’s New York Times Room for Debate. Outside-the-box solutions are in order.
- In 2011, fully twenty-seven states made changes to their pension systems. And, while the unions in some states aren’t happy (they’re challenging the changes in Florida and New Jersey), we’re better off than Britain. The U.K.’s National Association of Head Teachers is balloting members today for a strike over pension reform in Blighty. If approved, the strike could shut down every school in England and Wales.
- Whatever the snags of ObamaFlex, which states have taken its bait? Thus far: Connecticut, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wisconsin have announced they’ll seek waivers. And Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, and Rhode Island are all swimming close to the lure still.
