If unions are going to be challenged to consider uncomfortable ideas like reforms to teacher evaluation and pay, then Obama and Duncan must make good on their promise to involve unions in any school reforms, the AFT president says.
The Washington community is abuzz about the chancellor's latest move, which is to pare another 250 teachers from the city's teaching force. It's already engendered quite a bit of drama. Apparently, some forces within the Washington Teachers Union are seeking pro bono assistance to avert the layoff...
Wow! There's no reason to watch "Lost" when you've got the D.C. contract situation, which is quickly becoming as byzantine and bizarre as the popular TV program. DCPS officials have detailed Washington Teachers' Union Vice President Saunders back to his school over some kind of paperwork snafus...
Here we go again. The Washington Teachers' Union/American Federation of Teachers is, apparently, running another poll about the contract D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee proposed last summer, and about the AFT's counterproposal. And, just as it was last summer, the union is being accused of push-polli...
The Washington Post has this story up about the new teacher-evaluation system that D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee and her team are devising. The story does a good job talking about the benefits and perils of a "value added" system that uses test-score growth to estimate teacher effectiveness, a mode...
The Washington Teachers' Union is going on the charm offensive for its contract counter-proposal to that provided by Chancellor Michelle Rhee. It is running a series of radio advertisements promoting the contract, and at this new Web site calls its own proposal "progressive, bold and comprehensive."...
District of Columbia schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee turns in a must-read piece in the Washington Post, in which she tries to set the record straight: Broom aside, she's not focused on firing teachers. "I want to be clear about something: I do not blame teachers for the low-achievement levels. I h...
The Washington Teachers' Union and the American Federation of Teachers have submitted their counterproposal to District of Columbia Chancellor Michelle Rhee. There's probably a lot more in the actual proposal, which we apparently won't get to see anytime soon since that's a private matter between u...
There have long been rumors about the high-level of American Federation of Teachers' involvement in the contentious District of Columbia teacher-contract negotiations. Now the union's cards are out on the table: This weekend, the Washington Teachers' Union passed a motion to officially partner with ...
The forum on teacher support I attended on Nov. 5 raised some interesting ideas about how to improve teaching quality. In this post I'm going to attempt to make a little bit of sense of them. A comprehensive system for teacher support, the panelists said, starts with a clear definition of high-qual...
Recent Comments