Tag: Teacher Effectiveness

Rethinking Professional Development

Policy and Practice

August 25th, 2011

I’ll be honest—during my teacher tenure I didn’t always pay attention in professional development sessions. I either lesson planned, graded papers, or focused my efforts on the million and a half other things I needed to do yesterday. That’s why I had to pause when I saw several million dollars of Race to the Top funding going towards...

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Our Schools: Balancing Urgency with the Long View

News

August 15th, 2011

This blog post was originally published on "Town Square Delaware" as part of its August education series. My career in public education began in the classroom, teaching special needs students and working with a lot of students who didn’t see much of a future for themselves.  I think of those years often and about the impact I had, hoping that...

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Teacher Preparation Expanding, Policies Improving

Policy and Practice

August 11th, 2011

Nearly one-third of new teacher hires throughout America (compared to 15% in Delaware) are trained by alternative certification programs, according to a recently released report by the National Center for Alternative Certification.  These programs, which bypass traditional higher education preparation routes, recruit and select talented...

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Plugging the Summer Brain Drain

News

August 10th, 2011

Average American students lose approximately one month of learning in both math and reading over summer vacation, a recent RAND Corporation study finds, with low-income students losing at least two months of reading knowledge while their upper-income peers actually gain a month. However, good summer programs – those with small classes...

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