- Today marks the first House Education and Workforce Committee hearing on the reauthorization of ESEA. Billed as ESEA Renewal: 101 for novice committee members, it hints at an early commitment to reauthorization.
- Frighteningly, only 28 percent of the nation’s biology teachers straightforwardly teach evolution. And 13 percent actually advocate creationism.
- One Colorado Springs school district is putting the kibosh on its central office. By scrapping the majority of central office personnel, including the supe, the district is placing more authority in the hands of its high school principals—and saving over $10 million over the next five years.
- An external review (partially funded by the NEA) found that the value-added metrics used in the L.A. Times’s celebrated exposés of teacher effectiveness are “demonstrably inadequate.” While the Times stands by its metrics and data, WaPo reporter Nick Anderson raises some legitimate red flags about its validity. The What and How of VAM just got another degree more complicated. On the other hand, what’s the alternative?
- Along with parents, students, and the higher power, urban Catholic schools are now accountable to a new group: their donors. And they—especially the Wall Street-types who pump $15 million into the New York archdiocese—are an opinionated bunch, accustomed to running things themselves.
- Splinter teacher-union groups—who oppose traditional union politics in favor of education reforms—have popped up in L.A. and NYC. With them, one has to wonder if the cracks in the union monolith will widen.
