Latest News and Comment from Education

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

UPDATE: Should students evaluate teachers? The best and worst in education

Should students evaluate teachers?:


1947 video on school discipline

 Here’s a 1947 video on school discipline that you will find either illuminating or amusing, or both. It’s one of the videos that Sacramento high school teacher Larry Ferlazzo has on his 2012 list of best videos for educators, which you can find here on his blog.

Actually, some of the information from 1947 is still true: Most classroom behavior problems are minor discipline infractions, and within the control of a trained teacher.



Should students evaluate teachers?


First it became something of a national obsession for teachers to be judged by standardized test scores. Now increasingly we hear about students helping to evaluate teachers for purposes that include pay and effectiveness ratings. Is this a good idea? Larry Cuban looks into it. Cuban was superintendent for seven years, a former high school social studies teacher for 14 years and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, where he has taught for more than 20 years. This appeared on his school reform blog.
By Larry Cuban
Should K-12 student surveys of their teachers be used to determine whether they get a boost in salary or be judged effective or ineffective?
The emerging answer, according to Amanda Ripley’s recent article in The Atlantic



The best and worst in education and labor: 2012



Chicago teachers on strike (Sitthixay Ditthavong / AP)
Here Richard D. Kahlenberg, senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a nonprofit public policy research organization, writes about education and labor during 2012. This appeared on thefoundation’s blog.
By Richard D. Kahlenberg
The biggest news for education and labor watchers in 2012 was, of course, the reelection of a president far more supportive of investing in students and worker rights than his opponent.  But 2012 also saw important setbacks for public school advocates in Louisiana and Indiana and for workers and labor unions in Wisconsin and Michigan.
On the plus side of the ledger, 2012 witnessed the revival of tough and innovative teacher union leadership in Chicago and Washington; the emergence of center-right interest in