Teachers Union Supports Member Evaluations Based on Test Scores

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten urged teachers today to support member evaluations linked to student achievement scores, a measure long opposed by many educators. (read full article here)

NYC's Rubber Rooms

What do you do with a teacher who has been accused of violating a policy, but whose case has not been decided? In NYC, the teachers are put into what are known as rubber rooms, sitting idly by, sometimes for years until a complex system of appeals is resolved.

The New Yorker has an excellent piece on it.

The Mayor, the Teachers and the Tests

The debate in NYC over how to measure school teachers' effectiveness continues on in the Op-Ed section of the NY Times. One reader objects to Mayor Bloomberg's attempts to link teacher tenure to test results.

State rates teacher prep programs

"Out of the blue, the FCAT has a new job: measuring the programs across the state that produce teachers. (read full article here)"

Florida will start to try to rate teacher preparation based on the performance of their students on the FCAT. This will be state wide and will include Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County.

Should we 'sort' teachers?

The debate rages on about whether or not to rate teachers based on their students' performance. This letter to the editor criticizes the use of state exams, like the FCAT, as tools to measure outcomes.

Seniority? Test Scores? Student Outcomes? The Argument for Rethinking Teacher Compensation

Many occupations and careers are incentivized, in other words based on performance. If a contractor finishes a job ahead of schedule and under budget, she might receive a bonus. If a chemist discovers a new and useful compound that generates profit for her business, she may find a healthy monetary bump in her paycheck. The teaching profession, in Miami, South Florida and beyond, has long resisted basing bonuses on students' performance on standardized tests, etc.

Karen Gallagher explores the issue in a new HuffPo blog post.