Blog Archives

Listen to the 'Irreplaceables' on Professional Development

8/26/2013

Photo courtesy of National Council on Teacher Quality

This month, the education reform nonprofit TNTP released Perspectives of Irreplaceable Teachers, a follow-up report to 2012’s groundbreaking The Irreplaceables, which highlighted the crisis school districts face in retaining highly-effective teachers. In Perspectives, TNTP researchers spoke with 117 of the most elite, skilled American educators about their thoughts on the teaching profession. I’d like to zero in on one of the main findings: These highly-effective teachers attribute little of their success to formal preparation or professional development programs.

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Cursive and the Common Core

8/20/2013

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Photo courtesy of MEGA Brands America.

Though I know you may be positively shocked by this revelation, it seems that thanks to the rise of word processing, cursive writing is largely dying out. As the New York Times has reported, where schools used to teach script writing from third grade to as late as eighth grade, districts have reduced the number of grades in which the writing style is taught, sometimes limiting it just to the third grade. Perhaps the clearest sign of the potential death of cursive is this infographic from MEGA Brands America, a pencil-making company, whose haste to remind the American public of it’s own support for script betrays an industry running scared. It’s a sad state of affairs for handwriting enthusiasts everywhere, to be sure. I’ll give you a moment to compose yourself.

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Sealing the Leaks in the Teacher Prep Pipeline

8/16/2013

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Marisa Goldstein, of NCTQ; Benjamin Riley, of CAEP; and Marla Ucelli-Kashyap, of AFT, debate teacher preparation reform at a panel event hosted by YEP-DC. (Photo courtesy of Mandy Zatynski)

New York City took a big, important step toward teacher preparation reform this week. The city’s department of education, in a first-ever move nationwide, released scorecards on the 12 teacher education programs that supply the most educators to the city. They judge the quality of the programs based on new teachers’ performance and success (or lack thereof) in the classroom.

The scorecards highlight colleges that are graduating teachers who are highly effective, specialized, and more likely to stick with the profession for more than three years. It shines a desperately needed light on teacher preparation, one that panelists pushed for during a YEP-DC event panel this month. The event, called “Teaching the Teachers,” invited experts, researchers, and practitioners to weigh in on the all-important goal of strengthening teacher training across the nation.

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The Real Threat to Common Core? Missing the Mental Shift

8/12/2013

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For years, teachers have been far more likely to support depth of study rather than laps around the track of increasingly long content curricula. In a post last month, I called for a new emphasis on skill-building over the rote memorization that has dominated our educational system for decades. So what has stood in our way? Mostly, a standardized testing regime that requires students to know instead of know how. Now, we are on the verge of real change as both the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the GED (used by alternative schools like mine) are revamping the testing landscape to focus more on skill and depth of study. But will everyone get on board? And even more importantly: Will everyone understand what this shift means for classroom instruction?

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How (and How Not) To Hate on MOOCs

8/5/2013

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I’ve written before (a bit grumpily) about all of the hype around MOOCs. I tend to think that the narrative of an inevitable march toward MOOC disruption is overblown. But a few recent developments (and an unrelenting amount of punditry on the topic) have been a bit frustrating to me. To my mind, there are good reasons to criticize the educational value that MOOCs provide and to doubt the prospect that they might totally upend the higher education world, but far too often those good reasons are ignored for a much less rigorous focus on why MOOCs are bad for college professors.

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about

YEP-DC is a nonpartisan group of education professionals who work in research, policy, and practice – and even outside of education. The views expressed here are only those of the attributed author, not YEP-DC. This blog aims to provide a forum for our group’s varied opinions. It also serves as an opportunity for many more professionals in DC and beyond to participate in the ongoing education conversation. We hope you chime in, but we ask that you do so in a considerate, respectful manner. We reserve the right to modify or delete any content or comments. For any more information or for an opportunity to blog, contact us via one of the methods below.

Bloggers

MONICA GRAY is co-founder & president of DreamWakers, an edtech nonprofit. She writes on education innovation and poverty.

LYDIA HALL is a legislative aide in the U.S. House of Representatives, where she works on education, civil rights, and other issues. Lydia is interested in helping to bridge the gap between Capitol Hill and the classroom.

MOSES PALACIOS is an advocate for student rights and works as a Research Manager for the Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS) - a coalition of urban school districts across the nation. He writes on issues regarding the children of immigrants and students learning English as a second language. His views are his own and not representative of CGCS.

PATRICIA RUANE is a
research associate at an education nonprofit. She is an editor of Recess.

LESLIE WELSH is a high school social studies teacher in DC. She is an editor of Recess.

Listen to the 'Irreplaceables' on Professional Development

Cursive and the Common Core

Sealing the Leaks in the Teacher Prep Pipeline

The Real Threat to Common Core? Missing the Mental Shift

How (and How Not) To Hate on MOOCs

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