On Performance
Justin Baeder is a public school principal in Seattle and a doctoral student studying principal performance and productivity at the University of Washington. In this blog he examined issues of performance, improvement, and the changing nature of the education profession. This blog is no longer being updated.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Should Certification Require a Master's Degree?
In my last post, I asked whether a Master's degree is worth the tens of thousands of dollars in tuition, time, and opportunity cost, given that it doesn't correlate with better teaching performance.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Is a Master's Degree Worth $30,000?
Should a Master's degree be part of the teacher certification process, and what role should it play in compensation, if any?
School & District Management
Opinion
Joel Klein, Underdog: "The Real Losers Will Be Our Kids"
As I read Joel Klein's op-ed "The Case for the Private Sector in School Reform" in The Atlantic last week, I had the disconcerting feeling of agreeing with all of his arguments while simultaneously being somewhat revolted by them.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Go Teach, Young Man: Tweaking Risk and Reward to Recruit Male Teachers
How do we attract more top-performing male teachers to the profession, and what role does compensation play?
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Before LIFO Can End
As teacher evaluation has become a more serious concern around the country, we're starting to see things happen through a process that was once considered a mere formality. Teacher evaluation is growing teeth, and they're starting to show.
Education
Opinion
Confusing Standards and Pedagogy: When Policy Analysts Don't Talk to Educators
Kathleen Porter-Magee ripped into Heinemann last week with a scathing review of their book Pathways to the Common Core. I first learned of this review, on the Fordham Institute's Common Core Watch blog, after seeing a Twitter exchange between Porter-Magee and one of the book's authors on Twitter.
School Choice & Charters
Opinion
Parent-Empowerment Dynamics: On Avoiding the Neighbor Kids
I've enjoyed corresponding with a number of people about school choice and charters lately, and the issue of parent empowerment has come up repeatedly. I see two possible ways that parent empowerment can function:
School Choice & Charters
Opinion
School Choice & Social Capital
Over the past few months, I've met many fantastic educators who work in charter schools, and I certainly have no gripe with them. Charter schools are great labs for innovation, and I'm glad they exist. Having a small number of charter schools is probably a good thing.
Education
Opinion
Measuring the Efficiency of Schools
Why don't we look at school effectiveness as a question of efficiency - given its inputs, do this school's outputs suggest that it underperforms, or that it exceeds expectations?
Teaching Profession
Opinion
N.J. Passes Compromise Bill on Tenure Reform
I wasn't planning to ever write the terms "good education policy" and "Chris Christie" in the same sentence, but it appears that state Sen. Teresa Ruiz has pulled off something of a miracle: a substantive education reform bill that satisfies both the teachers' union and New Jersey's hard-charging governor.
Recruitment & Retention
Opinion
The Many Misconceptions About Algebra
I've been thinking a lot lately about why the national reaction was so strong to Andrew Hacker's op-ed in last Sunday's NY Times, "Is Algebra Necessary?"
School Choice & Charters
Opinion
Parent Trigger's First Test Case: An Interview With Yolie Flores
Yolie Flores is President & CEO of Communities for Teaching Excellence, and a former LAUSD school board member. I asked her a few questions regarding the first successful use of California's parent trigger law in Adelanto, CA.
Recruitment & Retention
Opinion
How Much Math Is Too Much?
Andrew Hacker has a bombshell opinion piece in last Sunday's NY Times, arguing that teaching algebra to all students is a wasted effort.
Education
Opinion
The Surgeon's Tools & Educational Standardization
In a recent post, I suggested that standardization is a good thing at the more coarse "grain sizes," but that administrators should leave substantial room for professional autonomy when it comes to the finer-grained choices teachers make. Today I want to address the same issue from a different angle.