Mastery poised to expand its influence around teacher coaching

Submitted by Dale Mezzacappa on Fri, 08/10/2012 - 13:25 Posted in Latest news | Permalink

Mastery Charter and its methods for training and supporting teachers may soon exert greater influence in schools all over the city, a development that promises to cement the organization’s influence on educational practice well beyond its own schools.

The Philadelphia Great Schools Compact is asking the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for $2.5 million, some $650,000 of which would pay for Mastery to train teacher coaches to work in District and Catholic schools and other charters.

A canopy view: 'The Village Proposal' book

Submitted by Samuel Reed III on Thu, 04/12/2012 - 11:58 Posted in Class notes | Permalink

“Reforming our schools to deliver a world-class education is a shared responsibility – the task cannot be shouldered by our nation's teachers and principals alone…” (U.S. Department of Education, ESA Blueprint for Reform 2010)

Christopher Paslay brings his expertise as a high school English teacher, contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer and Chalk and Talk blogger to make The Village Proposal a timely and compelling read. The book examines the problems in education by juxtaposing Paslay's personal memoir with solid documented research.

You may not agree with some or all of the arguments, but that is exactly what makes Village Proposal a good read. Paslay argues using a narrative structure not found in many books about education reform. He doesn’t bore the reader with an overly complex or over-simplified problem-and-solution approach to education. He presents a nuanced view of shared responsibility.   

'Not much of an upside' to publishing teacher ratings, says Duncan

Submitted by thenotebook on Fri, 03/23/2012 - 15:30 Posted in Latest news | Permalink

The Notebook has a content-sharing agreement with Education Week, where this piece originally appeared.

by Stephen Sawchuck

Publishing teachers' ratings in the newspaper in the way The New York Times and other outlets have done recently is not a good use of performance data, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in an interview yesterday.

"Do you need to publish every single teacher's rating in the paper? I don't think you do," he said. "There's not much of an upside there, and there's a tremendous downside for teachers. We're at a time where morale is at a record low. ... We need to be sort of strengthening teachers, and elevating and supporting them."

Connected: The networked teacher

by Samuel Reed III Posted in December 2011 Edition | Permalink

I recently sat down with Kira Baker-Doyle to talk about her book, The Networked Teacher, and the panel she moderated during the Philadelphia Writing Project's 10th Annual Celebration of Writing and Literacy in November.

Reed: Why do teachers need to build social networks? Does the connotation of the word "network" mean that teachers need to spend more time connecting with each other online?