This past Sunday, the Los Angeles Times released a major update to its elementary school teacher value-added ratings, much to the chagrin of many teachers, administrators, and civic leaders in the community. The teachers' ratings are determined by their students' progress on the California Standards Tests for English and math. This is the second time that the Times has caused a stir related to teacher ratings. Last August, the newspaper released teacher performance data for about half the number of teachers that were released on Sunday. When the Times invited teachers to view their scores before publication, only a few ...

Hot on the heels of the release of an updated set of teacher standards, a different consortium has released a similar set for teacher-leaders—those teachers who now serve in the coaching, mentoring, curriculum writing, and other roles that have proliferated over the last decade.

Yesterday I had the chance to speak with several Teacher Ambassador Fellows at the teacher town hall meeting hosted by the U.S. Department of Education.

Political blogger Matthew Yglesias points to a new report showing that nearly half of adults in Detroit are functionally illiterate. In that light, he contends, it's hard to argue against the need for standardized testing in schools: Under those circumstances, I find it difficult to be seized with worry that schools are going to be ruined by teachers "teaching to the test" too much. It is true that school districts that have started taking testing more seriously now need to step up and also take the possibility of outright cheating more seriously. But the fact that huge numbers of kids ...

The White House hosted a 30-minute webinar yesterday directed at students and teachers about the killing of Osama bin Laden. Ben Rhodes, deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for strategic communications and speechwriting, began by recapping the tragic events of 9/11 and the raid on the compound last Sunday, during which Bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces. Students were also briefed on Bin Laden's involvement in al Qaeda, and were shown a map of Pakistan that indicated where Abbottabad, the town in which he was hiding, is located. A couple of photos were ...

The Economist provides some fascinating—and starkly depressing—data on male employment levels in the U.S., finding that, among the so called G-7 nations, America has the lowest percentage of "prime-age" males in the workforce. Along with race, low education levels appears to play huge part in this: If you adjust official data to include men in prison or the armed forces (who are left out of the raw numbers), around 35% of 25- to 54-year-old men with no high-school diploma have no job, up from around 10% in the 1960s. Of those who finished high school but did ...

Loudoun County, Va., one of the fastest-growing counties in the nation, is developing its own corps of teachers through an initiative it started eight years ago called the Teacher Cadet program. According to the Washington Post, Loudoun created the program in order to recruit and train a new generation of Loudoun natives who could fill some of the several hundred teaching positions that open up in the jurisdiction each year. Currently, there are about 200 students participating in the program, a jump from the 34 students who participated the first year. Students in the program get first-hand teaching experience when ...

The Intelligencer Journal in Lancaster, Pa., reports on a young elementary school librarian who has transformed his facility into an invaluable technology resource center for teachers and students. But that still might not save his job: He is among 20 school librarians the district is planning to furlough next fall. "It's difficult to think how different this place is going to be next year," says the school's principal, who credits the library in part for a recent jump in students' literacy scores. (HT: Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, from Facebook)...

Gary Weddle, a middle school teacher in Ephrata, Wash., shaved for the first time in nearly 10 years on Sunday night, according to numerous news reports. Shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Weddle vowed not to shave until Osama bin Laden was captured or killed. He thought that would be a matter of a couple of months. Alas, his beard eventually grew to 14 inches at some points, giving him, as the Huffington Post remarks, a distinct ZZ Top look. At the start of each school year, Weddle would explain to his new class of students that ...

In an op-ed piece for the New York Times, Dave Eggers and Nínive Clements Calegari, the founders of the tutoring organization 826 National, highlight the need to recruit and retain a new generation of talented teachers, with 3.2 million K-12 teachers expected to retire in the next 10 years.

Last night's killing of Osama bin Laden by the U.S. military is a momentous—and complicated—event that will shape our nation's history.

Michelle Shearer, a chemistry teacher at Urbana High School in Ijamsville, Md., has been selected as the 61st National Teacher of the Year, according to the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Just when you thought everyone was against teachers: We just got a press release informing us that, in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week (May 2-6), Red Roof Inn is offering teachers (with, ahem, proper documentation) a 15 percent discount during May. Bonus: The release specifically notes that many Red Roofs are conveniently located near auto racing sites—not something you typically associate with Teacher Appreciation Week, but good to know I guess. You can thank me later....

The White House just announced the names of 85 kindergarten through 6th grade teachers who will receive the 2010 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, which is awarded each year to outstanding science and mathematics teachers throughout the nation. The award alternates between being given to kindergarten through 6th grade and 7th-12th grade teachers. This year's primary and middle school winners were first selected by their states, and from there chosen by a panel of distinguished scientists, mathematicians, and educators. The recipients, as named by President Obama, will receive a $10,000 award from the National Science ...

As Liana mentioned, the Council for Exceptional Children is meeting in our neck of the woods this week. Yesterday, I caught an interesting session at the conference on the problem of disproportionate representation of minorities in special education. The speaker was Edward Fergus, who is the deputy director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education at New York University. Metro Center is the entity that, under a contract with the New York State Department of Education, provides technical assistance to New York school districts that have been cited for "disproportionality"—that is, for over-assigning students from certain racial categories to special...

The Council for Exceptional Children is holding its annual conference here in D.C. this week. When I attended on Tuesday, a number of sessions were oriented around studies on tools and techniques for improving instruction for students with special needs. Some of the studies' outcomes seemed to carry little weight, as their sample sizes were small, the variables inconsistent, and the durations limited. But the techniques being tested were notable. In a session about teaching writing to middle school students with emotional and behavioral disabilities, researchers from George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., presented the results from an ongoing ...

This is bound to spark some interest. Harvard scholar Paul E. Peterson points to new research finding that 8th graders who received more direct instruction scored higher on an international math and science test than those whose teachers' predominantly engaged them in problem-solving activities. He notes that this is the direction that KIPP and other charter schools have already been moving, but that—sadly, in his view—most middle school instruction in the U.S., influenced by the "child-centered" theories of John Dewey and his progressive-education followers, "is weighted more towards problem-solving."...

School leaders' growing use of interactive networking platforms like blogs and Twitter for professional purposes has generally been welcomed as a way to promote transparency and idea-sharing and to model so-called 21st-century communication skills. But some educators are begining to ask whether, in the grand scheme of things, there aren't much better things administrators could be doing with their time. School technology expert Scott McLeod highlights an interesting comment in this vein: I watch principals or superintendents who tweet or blog a lot, and often I wonder what they could be doing in their building instead of that. In the ...

Wednesday (April 20) marked the 12th anniversary of the Columbine shootings. Students and communities found ways this week to remember the event and pay tribute to the victims' families. At Newman Middle School in Skiatook, Okla., students who may not have even been born at the time of the tragedy participated in Rachel's Challenge. The nationwide project, which aims to prevent violence in schools through anti-bullying efforts, was created in remembrance of Rachel Scott, the first of 13 people who were killed in the shootings. According to KJRH.com, the students at Newman were encouraged to write notes about random ...

In news somewhat related to my previous blog post... Both Harlem Childrens' Zone founder Geoffrey Canada and former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee made the 2011 TIME 100, a list of the year's most influential people. It's interesting to note that Canada's profile was guest written by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Rhee's, on the other hand, was written by Davis Guggenheim, who directed the controversial documentary "Waiting for 'Superman'," which both Rhee and Canada starred in. It seems Canada, at this point, is a less divisive character for Duncan to sing the praises of (especially considering ...