What's wrong with today's teacher-evaluation systems-and how to improve them Unsound teacher evaluation practices lead to misinformed decisions regarding strategies for student learning, resulting in negative effects to students. Education measurement and evaluation expert W. James Popham critiques what is wrong with many existing teacher-evaluation systems and offers an alternate system that respects the professionalism and dignity of teachers. Popham argues that, because teaching is a very situation- specific profession, the use of any paint-by-numbers, one- size-fits-all teacher evaluation system is patently absurd. Rather, the only defensible approach to teacher evaluation is to base it on collegial judgment, that is, on the evaluative conclusions of experienced teachers who have been specifically trained and formally certified to carry out this function. This book discusses: Key strengths and weaknesses of prominent teacher-evaluation evidence How to improve a flawed teacher-evaluation program The merits of a teacher evaluation program based on "evidence-governed collegial judgment

"Drawing on Christine Sleeter's review of research on the academic and social impact of ethnic studies commissioned by the National Education Association, this book will examine the value and forms of teaching and researching ethnic studies. The book employs a diverse conceptual framework, including critical pedagogy, anti-racism, Afrocentrism, Indigeneity, youth participatory action research, and critical multicultural education. The book provides cases of classroom teachers to 'illustrate what such conceptual framework look like when enacted in the classroom, as well as tensions that spring from them within school bureaucracies driven by neoliberalism.' Sleeter and Zavala will also outline ways to conduct research for 'investigating both learning and broader impacts of ethnic research used for liberatory ends'"--

Since its initial publication and multiple reprints in hardcover in 2005, Teachers Have It Easy has attracted the attention of teachers nationwide, appearing on the New York Times extended bestseller list, C-SPAN, and NPR's Marketplace, in additio...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A groundbreaking history of 175 years of American education that brings the lessons of the past to bear on the dilemmas we face today—and brilliantly illuminates the path forward for public schools. “[A] lively account." —New York Times Book Review In The Teacher Wars, a rich, lively, and unprecedented history of public school teaching, Dana Goldstein reveals that teachers have been embattled for nearly two centuries. She uncovers the surprising roots of hot button issues, from teacher tenure to charter schools, and finds that recent popular ideas to improve schools—instituting merit pay, evaluating teachers by student test scores, ranking and firing veteran teachers, and recruiting “elite” graduates to teach—are all approaches that have been tried in the past without producing widespread change.

This video uses statistics from six national surveys of teachers conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the U.S. Department of Education to present a comprehensive view of the teaching profession.

Why are America's public schools falling so short of the mark in educating the nation's children? Why are they organized in ineffective ways that fly in the face of common sense, to the point that it is virtually impossible to get even the worst teachers out of the classroom? And why, after more than a quarter century of costly education reform, have the schools proven so resistant to change and so difficult to improve? In this path-breaking book, Terry M. Moe demonstrates that the answers to these questions have a great deal to do with teachers unions—which are by far the most powerful forces in American education and use their power to promote their own special interests at the expense of what is best for kids. Despite their importance, the teachers unions have barely been studied. Special Interest fills that gap with an extraordinary analysis that is at once brilliant and kaleidoscopic—shedding new light on their historical rise to power, the organizational foundations of that power, the ways it is exercised in collective bargaining and politics, and its vast consequences for American education. The bottom line is simple but devastating: as long as the teachers unions remain powerful, the nation's schools will never be organized to provide kids with the most effective education possible. Moe sees light at the end of the tunnel, however, due to two major transformations. One is political, the other technological, and the combination is destined to weaken the unions considerably in the coming years—loosening their special-interest grip and opening up a new era in which America's schools can finally be organized in the best interests of children.

Migrant Teachers investigates an overlooked trend in U.S. public schools today: the growing reliance on teachers trained overseas, as federal mandates require K-12 schools to employ qualified teachers or risk funding cuts. A narrowly technocratic view of teachers as subject specialists has led districts to look abroad, Lora Bartlett asserts, resulting in transient teaching professionals with little opportunity to connect meaningfully with students. Highly recruited by inner-city school districts that struggle to attract educators, approximately 90,000 teachers from the Philippines, India, and other countries came to the United States between 2002 and 2008. From administrators' perspective, these instructors are excellent employees--well educated and able to teach subjects like math, science, and special education where teachers are in short supply. Despite the additional recruitment of qualified teachers, American schools are failing to reap the possible benefits of the global labor market. Bartlett shows how the framing of these recruited teachers as stopgap, low-status workers cultivates a high-turnover, low-investment workforce that undermines the conditions needed for good teaching and learning. Bartlett calls on schools to provide better support to both overseas-trained teachers and their American counterparts.