Latest News and Comment from Education

Friday, November 22, 2013

Evaluate This! | EduShyster

Evaluate This! | EduShyster:

Evaluate This!

Happy Accountability Day, reader! But how best to celebrate when nearly every day seems to be Accountability Day these days? In Massachusetts we like to mark the passage of a consequential day with consequences by scouring newly released teacher ratings in order to finally, FINALLY, smoke out those bad teachers. So pull up a chair and uncork the wine box—it’s time for some deep data diving.
R u proficient?  
Accountability Day started with a bang yesterday when the Boston Public Schools bowed to demands from the excellence-loving Boston Globe and released teacher ratings for the city’s schools. Inquiring minds, and the few remaining Globe subscribers, were on theedge of their high-performing seats: would the ratings shine the spotlight of excellence upon the legions of LIFO-lifers and their achievement-gap-widening ways? Alas, this particular spotlight seemed to shine somewhat randomly except for when it fell, laser like, upon older and minority teachers, a *disproportionate* sha