Keep your federal blood money thank you.
I am a teacher. I chose my vocation knowing the compensation would not ever be what it should in the interest of students, let alone its impact on me personally, and my colleagues. I am an active...
View ArticleHas the Governor Gone Too Far?
Cross Posted from ShapTalk.com:For the past decade, New Jersey 's Governors have slowly but steadily politicized the State's system of higher education, from appointing "cronies" to serve on the Board...
View ArticleLeave No Teacher Behind
Nearly a month ago now, Robert Reich wrote on his blog If teachers want higher salaries, the unions are going to have to accept merit pay. Indeed, that's the whole point. Great teacher should be...
View ArticleMerit Pay and NCLB: George Miller Still Getting it Wrong
(full disclosure: California Teacher's Association has hired me to do online outreach on NCLB)There are a lot of things wrong with NCLB, so why are George Miller and Nancy Pelosi insisting on adding...
View ArticleThoughts on the NYC Performance Pay Plan
Is NYC's plan to reward educators financially a collective or an individual performance pay plan? I see this as an individual plan with an additional step - first, the school must meet benchmarks, and...
View ArticleWhat was wrong with the debate education question
Let me start by disclosing the following. I am an active member of the National Education Association, a teachers’ union. And I resent the way the question was phrased. As I write this I do not...
View ArticleWhy "Merit Pay" For Teachers Is a Horrible Idea
Among my experiences in my short life, I spent several years teaching in a phenomenally ranked school district and prior to that, time teaching in one of the most abominable school districts. I've...
View ArticleMerit Pay for Teachers
I like Obama as our candidate and believe that he will be a good President. The alternative is too terrible to think about. However, there have been some stances that Obama has taken that has caused...
View ArticleSome reflections on merit pay
When I was graduated from high school in 1977, the Shoreline School District -- which is located immediately north of the Seattle city line -- was the only district west of the Mississippi River to...
View ArticleEducation Issues - Merit Pay
During his acceptance speech at Invesco Field, Barack Obama said: Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less...
View ArticleThe Pragmatist: Charter Schools and Merit Pay For Teachers
Barack Obama is a pragmatist.His foreign policy approach wouldn't raise eyebrows in a Bush Senior administration up to a point (the point of greed for resources where the "fasciosphere" drools on its...
View ArticleA Few Thoughts and Questions on Education Reform
In 1968, Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man and follower of Ayn Rand, published a story in Wally Wood's pro-zine, Witzend, where a teacher was stabbed by one of her students. The student was chased...
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Pry the cold, dead fingers of the GOP off our public schools
It's very odd that the Democratic leadership waited until after the GOP foreign and economic policy had all the positive effects of a 50 megaton nuke before they said those ideas MAYBE don't work. Will...
View Article'S' is for 'Scapegoat'
There's a lot of boogeymen and boogeywomen in American politics. Our discourse is fairly rife with them. Single mothers, gay men, "militant" feminists, corrupt union bosses, welfare queens,...
View ArticleObama Education Agenda & Teacher Rewards
President Obama announced an ambitious program for our education system today that covers kids from pre-school to college. He is determined that we become a nation of achievers and that our schools...
View Articlechanging schools: pay for performance?
Public schools shape the experiences of our children for 13 years. While many public schools serve their students exceptionally well, others are struggling. Inequities in student performance, financial...
View ArticleNew Study - Merit Pay does NOT work
One of the key parts of the Obama-Duncan approach to education form is the implementation of merit pay for teachers. Perhaps in light of the release of a new study by the Economic Policy Institute,...
View ArticleSaturday Morning Open Thread
Good morning fellow moms, dads and caregivers!How are you this morning? I am fried. I managed to fill out and send out approximately 80 holiday cards, buy, wrap and mail out gifts this week. On the...
View ArticleYes, we can improve public education
We often hear about how our public education system is a failure. Politicians and pundits love to talk about what needs to happen in order to fix our "broken" system, yet rarely do they have a real...
View ArticleMerit pay based on test scores is a deeply flawed idea
It would be a dream scenario for any high school basketball coach- arriving at practice every day with an athletic front line, averaging six feet, nine inches tall (and able to handle the ball) and a...
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