More pay for more students? More pay for great teachers?

from Teaching Now Blog

Duncan: Stop Paying Teachers Like 'Interchangeable Widgets'

The secretary responded that he supports increasing compensation both for higher quality teachers and for those with more students. From a parent's perspective, he said, he would prefer to put his child in a class that had 26 students and an exceptional teacher rather than a class with 22 students and a mediocre one.

"I think our great teachers, we desperately underpay, undervalue. And so, pick a number: 80 grand, 100 grand, 120 grand. ... If you are a great teacher, whatever your class size is, you should be compensated in a very different way," Duncan said. "And if you take three or four more students, we shouldn't just pay you for being great, we should pay you more for taking those [additional] students."

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2010/11/duncan_cut_school_budgets_without_cutting_teacher_pay.html

Clinicals for Teachers WSJ

WSJ article about bringing the model of "clinicals" to pre-service teaching

http://online.wsj.com/article/APed19d7616d9c4c02b28ea862e4aedd73.html

Teaching Boys: Importance of relationships

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/11/17/12reichert.h30.html?tkn=RVLFhVF0q7YKMnbZliM0INYZzhToPqY5CaNk&cmp=clp-edweek

National Book Awards Announced!

Here you can find a list of both winners and nominees of the National Book Award:

http://www.borders.com/online/store/ListView_nba10?cmpid=SA_20101118_3

Baltimore Teachers agree to groundbreaking contract

No more steps. Student assessment data key.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-teacher-contract-revote-20101117,0,7170739.story

One-Third Agenda Won't Close Gaps

Richard Rothstein notes on a keynote ASCD speech.

"Decades of social science research have demonstrated that differences in the quality of schools can explain about one-third of the variation in student achievement.".... "Efforts to improve schools are undermined by the deteriorating conditions under which kids come to school," he said.

http://ascd.typepad.com/blog/2010/11/rothstein-one-third-agenda-wont-close-gaps.html

Recent Campus Slang

For fun, here’s a NYTs article about the latest slang on campus:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/magazine/31FOB-onlanguage-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine

Preparing student teachers for evaluation

How are ed schools responding to the new norm of student assessment as part of teacher evaluation.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bs-md-education-schools-reform-20101031,0,2886024.story