Hello, India? I Need Help With My Math NYT
In a new wave of the global outsourcing of services, personal chores are moving offshore, and this is leading to some daunting challenges, both economic and cultural.

On Education: Classroom of the Future Is Virtually Anywhere NYT
There is no blackboard and no lectern, and, most glaringly, no students in the university classroom of the future.

With World Growing Smaller, IB Gets Big EdWeek
Amid heightened concern about preparing students for a global economy, the academically demanding International Baccalaureate program is catching on fast in U.S. schools.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Follow The Bouncing Ball

Using ball as chair helps focus, third-graders say
Grand Rapids Press
Katie Messina teaches to a sea of bobbing heads. Messina first experimented with using balls as chairs six years ago in another school, where her class included seven second-graders with attention deficit disorders.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 8:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 26, 2007

From Happy Welcome To Jail Mug Shot

Things started out so well for this new teacher (left), but ended recently with rape charges and a mug shot (right).

Via USA Today's On Deadline blog.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 25, 2007

Higher Ed's Role In Creating An Oversupply Of Under-Qualified Teachers

Here the Economist details the struggles of various countries to improve public education and change the large variations in how much students learn, focusing in on a recent McKinsey recommendation that nations change the way they select teachers (How to be top). I know, McKinsey. And yes, other countries. I hate that stuff too. But there's some worthwhile thinking in there, much as I hate to admit it. If education programs attract the bottom third of college students, and universities accept and train them regardless of need, the built-in limitations are obvious. Of course, reining in universities, much less the ed schools, has proven difficult if not impossible for lawmakers to do. It's much easier to muck around in K12 and ignore the role of higher ed in all this. Via Eduwonk, I think.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 24, 2007

Teacher Suspended For Graphic Book Recommendation

Teachers can get in trouble for pretty much anything these days. This time it's a book by Cormac McCarthy that was deemed a little too graphic for high schoolers: Town in uproar after teacher put on leave over book. Like high school kids haven't been exposed to tales of murder sprees and decomposing bodies before.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 22, 2007

Teachers Behaving Badly, States Ignoring The Problem

Between last week's report from the Small Newspaper Group (see chart) and today's AP story, we've got a glut of information about teachers behaving badly. According to last week's story, only Virginia revokes or suspends fewer teaching certificates than Illinois.States such as California, Georgia or Utah are 25 times more like to remove a teacher from the profession than Illinois.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 19, 2007

Hidden Teacher Violations...In Illinois & Nationwide

Speaking of teachers, there's a new slew of stories from the folks at the Small Newspaper Group in Springfield Illinois that may blow your socks off: Illinois does poor job of dealing with teacher misconduct "Small Newspaper Group filed open records requests with 50 state education departments and built a national database of revocations and suspensions of teacher licenses during its "Hidden Violations" investigation. Among the 50 states, only Virginia revokes or suspends fewer teaching certificates than Illinois. Even if a hearing officer upholds the firing of teacher, they are free to seek employment in another school district." These are the same folks who did an award-winning investigative report on teacher tenure two years ago.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 17, 2007

Making Teaching A Career, Not A Drive-By Charity Stop

Over at Teacher In A Strange Land, teacher Nancy Flanagan riffs off of my Teach For America essay from last week. "TFA has done nothing to re-conceptualize the work of teaching as both socially valuable and complex professional practice. In fact, TFA and similar “fellowship” programs have spawned a rash of research projects bent on proving that teacher education isn’t particularly useful—that any smart person can teach." But, like me, Flanagan agrees that the potential is there: "When Wendy Kopp comes up with an idea to keep TFA folks in teaching or reposition teaching as a flexible, entrepreneurial professional career, I personally will carry signs nominating her for a MacArthur grant—or Secretary of Education."

Posted by Alexander Russo at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 16, 2007

Pay For Performance... In The Blogosphere

Pay for performance is everywhere, these days. Once compensated purely based on how many posts they wrote, some bloggers are now being paid according to how many viewers and comments their posts generate, according to this in-depth New York Magazine article (Everybody Sucks ). How's that for pay for performance?

Meanwhile, the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights released a new report on PFP last week, focusing on a handful of districts doing it collaboratively. It's not so bad, they say. Check it out.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 15, 2007

A Gay Union Leader For New York City Teachers

According to this NY Daily News article, Randi Weingarten, head of the NYC teachers union and potential successor to AFT president Ed McElroy, came out at a recent event as a lesbian. This is probably not such a big deal in New York City, but in the rest of the country, who knows.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 12, 2007

The School Is Flat

Working on an upcoming article for Edutopia I've learned some of the latest going on in the world of e-learning (aka distance education). For example, there's a great international project called The Flat Classroom Project, which takes the ideas of Thomas Friedman's World Is Flat -- appropriately enough -- asks teams of students from around the world to investigate them. As for the technology itself, podcasts and wikis are pretty much old hat for this crew. They're on to things likenings, FlashMeeting, and iEARN.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Lives Of Former Students

Over at Nick Kristof's NYT blog, Chicago teacher Will Okun describes attending the wedding of some former students, with beautiful pictures. "Last Saturday, I attended and photographed the Chicago wedding of Keith and Tarita Thomas. While all former students are remarkable and unique in their own individual ways, Keith is the once-in-a-career student who holds a special place in every teacher’s life. Keith is also one of the very few students I have taught in nine years who was raised in a two-parent household." It's nice stuff, and pretty amazing that they're giving him so much space. Plus 86 reader comments and counting.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 4, 2007

Measure TFA By What It Does (Meh), Or What Its Alums Do (More)?

Finishing out what's been an informal TFA Week, TAPPED's Dana Goldstein puts it pretty well: "It feels heartless to criticize a program that's, well, so good-hearted...But while it appears that TFA is very effective at connecting business leaders and young professionals with the public school reform movement and imbuing them with a sense of commitment toward public education, it's unlikely TFA is impacting student achievement in any broadly-defined way."

Meanwhile, in The Economist: "It will be hard for even a corps of 10,000 teachers to have a large impact in a country that has 3m teachers in public schools alone. But the influence of TFA's alumni, supporters say, is at least as important as the direct impact in the classroom." Via Eduwonk.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 6:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Giving Shanker Credit For What He Wanted To Do

I wish Slate had taken my piece about Al Shanker (How Al Shanker Blew Up No Child Left Behind) instead of Sara Mosle's recent review, but I'm happy to report that Mosle and I make some of the same points. For example, that Shanker's work unionizing teachers affects nearly every classroom teacher to this day. ("Today, there isn't a teacher in America whose life hasn't been touched by Shanker's own.") But we disagree about his legacy, in that Mosle (The Man Who Transformed American Education) gives more credit to Shanker for his ideas and "prescience" than I do. Journalists and pundits and wonks (and AFTies) like to focus on all the rest -- the "good" Shanker, the ideas, the potential -- but to me, Shanker is all about his real-world accomplishments, which are powerful and far-reaching but aren't most of them really about school reform.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 12:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 1, 2007

Performance Pay Not "Mandatory" In MIller Proposal, Group Says

For the last three weeks the NEA and most of the news coverage (for example here) have been referring to the merit pay provisions in George Miller's NCLB plan as "mandatory," but on Friday the Center on American Progress think tank put out a fact sheet claiming that the requirements are voluntary (and that Miller is not against collective bargaining). Who's right? It's hard to say. After all, NCLB itself could be described as voluntary -- states don't have to take the money and implement its rules -- but in reality it's not that way (states need the money). Still, it looks like there's more wiggle room and protections for teachers and local contracts in there than has been advertised (or reported).

Posted by Alexander Russo at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 27, 2007

Charter Schools For Rich Kids

Charter schools aren't just for poor kids, anymore. This week's Education Gadfly digs out an interesting story from the San Jose Mercury about parents in affluent Palo Alto, Cal. successfully threatening to start a Mandarin immersion charter school if the district didn't create one on its own. Some folks in the article think this isn't what charters are "for." Not surprisingly, the Gadfly thinks differently (All in). If you don't give parents -- especially affluent ones -- what they want, then they simply exit the system. Which, as with health insurance risk pools, just makes things worse for those kids and teachers left behind.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Teacher's Thoughts In The New York Times

I've been remiss in not posting something earlier about Chicago teacher Will Okun, whose writing and photography is being posted on the New York Times website as part of Nick Kristof's "On The Ground" series. How nice to see a real teacher's voice on the pages of the New York Times, plus all the comments that follow. In his most recent posting, Okun describes the inverse relationship between parents who come to parent-teacher conferences and parents who need to come to them, and what if anything should and can be done to address the problem. In his previous post, Okun decries the "miracle worker" notion of teaching, for teachers as well as reformers, and the process of teaching in a more sustainable way - even if it means "giving up" on some of the most disinterested kids.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bringing Back Dunce Caps In New Orleans

Even if you don't care much what's happening in New Orleans, this USA Today update details some of the more hard-to-watch tactics that some schools there (and elsewhere) are employing to create a culture of high expectations (New Orleans school system re-educated):

"After breakfast and roll call, reading teacher Anne Felter walks through the aisles and distributes 26 large, laminated "YET" signs to selected students — those deemed "not there yet." The students wear the signs around their necks for three days, can't talk to other students and must eat lunch alone."

I'm not as opposed to this as some are, but I can appreciate how tough it is to contemplate.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 9:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 24, 2007

Critic Explains Internal Union Dynamics

Many may have missed the EIA Communique's analysis of the internal politics surrounding NCLB reauthorization, which came out late last week (EIA Communique). Others may have better explanations (EIA is a union critic), but this one describes some of the history behind the TEACH Act, suggesting that Miller should have known that it would be a problem, reminds us that Miller and the NEA went at it "hammer and tongs" in the runup to NCLB 1.0, and reminds us that the CTA and NEA aren't always on the same page. Most important, it reminds us of the internal dynamics going on within the union (any union) that require rallying the troops on broad issues but holding a smaller set of issues as key "gets."

Posted by Alexander Russo at 1:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 21, 2007

How Teachers Think

I wish there was an education version of Jerome Groopman's new book, How Doctors Think, to help us understand how teachers make decisions about students' learning difficulties. The Groopman book examines the thought processes of various doctors, focusing especially on how -- and why -- even the best of them tend to get things wrong when diagnosing patients. As Groopman shows, the errors (up to 24 percent in some studies) have common causes: doctors aren't listening carefully, they're thinking of their previous patients, or they rely on experience rather than using statistical guidelines. Are teachers any better or worse at making tough decisions with little time and lots of uncertainty? More important, what are the error patterns in their decisionmaking?

Posted by Alexander Russo at 9:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Erase, Rewrite, & Reauthorize NCLB, Says CTA

Teachers to Pelosi: Say no to 'No Child Left Behind SF Examiner
Leaders of the CTA brought a giant postcard signed by nearly 1,000 teachers to San Francisco today to urge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to withdraw her support of a proposed reauthorization of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Click on the picture to see the giant postcard that was used at yesterday's press event. Click the link to find out more on the CTA campaign to "erase, rewrite, and reauthorize" NCLB.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

September 20, 2007

Maybe It Wasn't Shanker After All

One of the most interesting of the 20-something mostly irate comments on my Huffington Post article claims that Shanker doesn't deserve credit for unionizing the teachers because David Selden was the true visionary and was replaced by Shanker in a power struggle along the lines of Stalin and Trotsky. Hmm. Guess I skipped that chapter in Kahlenberg's book.

Speaking of which, Kahlenberg says I got it wrong. He writes: "I don't agree that "few" of Shanker's ideas were adopted. Standards and charters were two big ideas he was very involved in pushing -- though I'd concede that neither worked out as he envisioned. The NBPTS is a pretty big idea that he promoted. Peer review exists in 30 districts -- not enough places, but enough to keep some pressure on. Entry level teacher tests are tougher than when he started. So I think it's a mixed and evolving legacy on ed reform...I think Al Shanker would have found a way to bridge the divide between the standards groups and teachers, which would have forced NEA to modify its positions."

Posted by Alexander Russo at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

California Teachers Go After Pelosi On NCLB

After last Monday's success, The CTA is continuing its effort to make sure that the Miller NCLB draft is slowed down and/or modified substantially with an event in Northern California today (see details below). As before, I'm not sure just how coordinated this is with the national -- as happened with the Katrina vouchers, I'm told. Or perhaps they're playing good cop, bad cop. On strategy, I've noted before that Miller may have overplayed his hand by including TEACH. But it occurs to me also that the unions may have done the same by pushing to expand local assessments and multiple measures, which Miller included in his bill. There's some priority-setting here that I'm not sure makes sense.

Continue reading "California Teachers Go After Pelosi On NCLB" »

Posted by Alexander Russo at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

September 19, 2007

How Al Shanker Blew Up NCLB

When the prospects for renewal of the federal education law known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) blew up during a marathon Congressional hearing a week ago, there was no shortage of ready explanations. But the real, underlying cause is simple: It was Al Shanker's fault.

Click below to continue...or go here to read the full-length version from The Huffington Post.

Continue reading "How Al Shanker Blew Up NCLB" »

Posted by Alexander Russo at 2:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 18, 2007

Miller & The Teachers

Former Miller staffer Charlie Barone weighed in a few days ago with an optimistic-sounding post on the DFER blog about how -- despite the flaws in Spellings' implementation of NCLB and Miller's draft proposal -- the two might rise above the fray (or just plow through it) in order to get some good things done as they had in the past (Special guest blogger).

I hope he's right. But, based on current events and my own small understanding of what it's like to work with the teachers, I'm not feeling so hopeful right now. First off, there's a long history of teachers (esp the NEA) fighting with Miller despite his deep support for their work -- on EdFlex, on class size reduction during the Clinton administration, and on NCLB's infamous HQT provisions, and now on the TEACH Act. When it gets down to it, even the AFTies are pretty hard core (AFT Michele the other day wrote "what's good for teachers is good for children"). Meantime, the teachers in LA are threatening to block the transformation of Locke high school into small union charter schools, despite strong support within the Locke faculty and a vote of the elected school board approving the change earlier this month.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Current State Of "Alt" Cert

Nearly everywhere you go in New York you run into new teachers who joined the NYC Teaching Fellows program -- the city's version of TFA, I guess -- teaching for the first time and taking grad school courses at night. And nearly everywhere you go you'll find that they complain mightily -- about the lame courses they have to take, and about the schools where they're placed lacking support. Now there's a book and a new report out on the topic. The book, Great Expectations, is reviewed in today's New York Sun. The new report, from Fordham, has the usual witty cover and the usual disputed findings (see story here).

Posted by Alexander Russo at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 13, 2007

How The NEA Ended Up So Opposed To Miller/McKeon

I wrote on Monday that the CTA was coming out stronger against the Miller/McKeon draft than the NEA, which had -- until then -seemed tolerably pleased. And well they should have been. However, Andy (Eduwonk) Rotherham (pictured) wondered how I could ever have thought that the NEA was supportive of the Miller/McKeon draft. And you know he's always right. Well, a look back at the week behind shows that it wasn't at all clear to me (or anyone else) how things would turn out on Monday -- though perhaps it should have been. Read below to see how it all unfolded.

Continue reading "How The NEA Ended Up So Opposed To Miller/McKeon" »

Posted by Alexander Russo at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 10, 2007

California Teachers Union Defies NEA "Suits"

A couple of sharp-eyed folks have noted this afternoon that, while the NEA seems to have gotten what it wants (or thinks it can get) from the Miller draft, the California Teachers -- powerful forces for Miller, McKeon, and Pelosi -- are taking a much harder anti-NCLB line. See NCLB II post here (Ca. Teachers Oppose "Miller/Pelosi" Bill), and Schools Matter here (which contrasts the NEA and CTA positions): "We must thank the CTA for taking the position that the Suits for the NEA will not."

Posted by Alexander Russo at 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Teachers With Richer Kids Earn More Under Performance Pay

"Teachers at predominantly white and affluent schools were twice as likely to get a bonus as teachers from schools that are predominantly black and poor," based on this Orlando Sentinel story (Merit pay for teachers reveals sway of affluence). "It wasn't supposed to work that way." Via a friend.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Short Boys Underestimated By Teachers

No wonder some parents are holding their kids back a year before they start school, if this report from EdWeek is right: Teachers Underestimate Short Boys' Intelligence.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 12:28 PM | Permalink

September 5, 2007

NCLB, Like Shanker, Stronger On Standards Than Teacher Quality

I'm still dipping around in Rick Kahlenberg's new bio of Al Shanker (pictured), but this commentary about Shanker and NCLB (What Would Al Say?) reminds me of one clear Kahlenberg theme: Shanker was much more effective in pushing for standards and accountability than he was on teacher quality issues. In that sense, NCLB is very much an Al Shanker type of law: stronger on standards and accountability than on teacher quality. Alas, the teacher quality issue may be as or more important than anything else. But there's precious little discussion about TQ in NCLB 2.0. What's with that?

Posted by Alexander Russo at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rounding Up The Education Titles

Former US News education editor Ben Wildavsky reviews the latest group of education books so you don't have to. He finds some things to like about Linda Perlstein's Tested, though he questions whether the school she profiles is representative. "Could it be that the problem is not the tests but the inappropriate, even absurd, ways in which schools are responding to them?" About Jonathan Kozol's Letters To A Young Teacher, Wildavsky doesn't have much good to say. Also reviewed: Dan Brown's story of a first-year teacher in New York, as well as Alex Klein's profile of kids at Stuyvesant High School.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 3, 2007

Teachers & Teaching: Labor Day Roundup

Film Chronicles Teacher's Fight for Respect NPR
The Education of Ms. Groves, a four-part documentary, follows a sixth-grade schoolteacher as she struggles to gain respect from her new students in Atlanta's public school system.

Teachers: Be subversive Salon.com
Salon spoke to Kozol from his home in Byfield, Mass., about the fun of first graders, the trouble with "utilitarian" teaching, and why No Child Left Behind is "the worst education legislation" in 40 years.

Teachers in Trouble, Parents Ignored -- Part I Washington Post (Jay Mathews)
Today, and in the next two columns, I will describe four cases at more length, and follow with a column of reader reactions, and one on how experts in parental issues think these cases should have been handled. PLUS: Teachers in Part II, Part III.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 3, 2007

"Tough Liberal" --Friday Reading For Steve Barr & Others

After seven years of hard work, Richard Kahlenberg's long-awaited biography of AFT founder Al Shanker is finally coming out, and -- according to small schools guru Mike Klonsky -- it's got things for both Shanker admirers and detractors to like. As Klonsky writes, Shanker foreshadows things like the Green Dot charters that are now on everyone's minds -- and reminds us how progressive ideas (small schools, charters) can get hijacked by even the most well-intended. Officially out in September, you can order it here.

Posted by Alexander Russo at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)