Education News

Education Bumbler Chris Christie Endorses Bob Ehrlich (Education Bumbler)

3:55 pm EST October 5th, 2010 | Education, Maryland | Comments Off

Chris Christie

Recently Bob Ehrlich has been stumbling all over himself on the education issue, a high priority for Maryland voters. In addition to the college tuition raises during his tenure as governor (O’Malley froze them), Ehrlich recently said he would cut education funding. How does he top that?

New Jersey governor Chris Christie is coming to Maryland to endorse and fundraise for Ehrlich. It’s a good fit, as I noted a few weeks ago, Christie made a fool of himself with his staff screwup and blame game around New Jersey’s Race to the Top application.

Oh by the way, Maryland was a successful race to the top applicant. Under Governor O’Malley.

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Abstinence Only Sex Ed Funding Is Dead

12:40 pm EST October 1st, 2010 | Education, Politics | 3 Comments

Here’s a crazy idea: Let’s fund sex ed programs that work, and not just because the scratch the itch of right-wing ideology.

I know, insane.

 

Baltimore Schools Switching To Pay For Performance For Teachers

3:21 am EST September 29th, 2010 | Education | 16 Comments

This is very good news.

The Baltimore school district and its teachers union have struck a landmark agreement that would end the longtime practice of linking pay to years of employment and place the city at the forefront of a national reform effort, according to sources familiar with the pact.

The two sides have discussed a pay system that would reward skills and effectiveness and are expected to announce the details of the agreement Wednesday.

Experts in teacher compensation said Baltimore was poised to become one of only a handful of places in the country, including Washington, D.C., New Haven, Conn., and Pittsburgh, that have moved toward paying teachers for performance as a way to improve the quality of education in their schools. The Obama administration has been pressing for such changes.

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‘Waiting for Superman’ On The Union Role In Education

6:53 pm EST September 23rd, 2010 | Education | 34 Comments

Personally, I’m inclined to be on the opposite side of the unions when it comes to improving American education. I’ve felt that they are so resistance to change and accountability, they actively impede progress for our kids. The Nation takes the opposite position, critiquing the new movie Waiting For Superman for what the author perceives as an anti-union lead. Check it out.

Worth noting however, I think the article ends up making some decent anti-union points:

The unions are also hurt by public frustration with teacher tenure, a level of job security inconceivable to most American workers, who are barely hanging on during a recession with a nearly 10 percent unemployment rate.

“Only 7 percent of American workers are in unions,” Weingarten says, adding matter-of-factly, “America looks at us as islands of privilege.”

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Perhaps the writer most associated with the teachers-unions-as-villains narrative is Brill, the Court TV founder cum promoter of micropayments for online news. In August 2009 The New Yorker published Brill’s report on New York City’s “rubber rooms,” an exposé focused on the one-twentieth of 1 percent of the district’s 80,000 public school teachers (about forty people) who had been removed from the classroom because of gross negligence, such as failing to teach at all or verbally harassing students. Nevertheless, because these teachers had been granted tenure by the district, their contracts—negotiated between the Education Department and their union, the United Federation of Teachers—entitled them to a full salary until a due process hearing determined whether they would be fired or reassigned. While they awaited hearings, sometimes for as long as three years, the UFT portrayed some rubber room teachers as innocent victims of “seniority purges,” ignoring evidence of incompetence including, in one case, alcohol abuse. (Many teachers, it turns out, are opposed to such efforts. According to a 2003 Public Agenda poll, 47 percent of them believe “the union sometimes fights to protect teachers who really should be out of the classroom.”)

In part because of the outcry generated by the New Yorker piece among the city’s elite—many of whom do not send their children to public schools and are ignorant of the system’s inner workings—the Education Department and the UFT have phased out rubber rooms.

 

Maryland, DC Win Race To The Top Grants

11:54 am EST August 24th, 2010 | Education | Comments Off

children in classNice.

Maryland and the District of Columbia joined eight states as winners of $3.4 billion in coveted education grants, federal officials said Tuesday morning.

The other winners in the second round of President Obama’s Race to the Top were Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Rhode Island, said Education Department spokesman Justin Hamilton.

The department was briefing lawmakers and governors this morning. There was no immediate word on how much money each winner will receive.

We’ve got a pretty good education system here, particularly in Montgomery County where I live, this will likely make it even better.

 

Bob Ehrlich Tweet Shows Why He’s No Good For Maryland Education

5:41 pm EST August 13th, 2010 | Education, Maryland | 7 Comments

Maryland’s got one of the best records on education in the country. In fact, Gov. O’Malley was recently named “America’s Greatest Education Governor” by the NEA. At the same time, we’re getting tweets like this from the Ehrlich camp…

That’s “due”, Mr. Ehrlich. “Due.”

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Over-Standardized Testing

8:59 am EST June 11th, 2010 | Education | 46 Comments

While I am in favor of serious educational reform and increased accountability, increasingly it seems that the massive amount of standardized testing results in more problems than it purports to solve:

Of all the forms of academic cheating, none may be as startling as educators tampering with children’s standardized tests. But investigations in Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, Virginia and elsewhere this year have pointed to cheating by educators. Experts say the phenomenon is increasing as the stakes over standardized testing ratchet higher — including, most recently, taking student progress on tests into consideration in teachers’ performance reviews.

 

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