Search Results for: Falcon innovation

Since today is February 29, I’ll take a timely leap from some of my usual fare to point you to two new podcasts produced by my Education Policy Center friends. In the first, Gina Schlieman explains how school-level autonomy has empowered some positive changes in Britain. In the second, foundation president Tom Kaesemeyer highlighted a program rewarding high-poverty Denver-area schools that are getting good results, and observed that exceptional principal leadership was at the top of the list of common school factors. Next, a recently published op-ed by Ben DeGrow, who hosted both of the aforementioned podcasts, explains one of the key merits of Colorado’s 2010 educator effectiveness legislation: Principals as instructional leaders will share accountability with classroom teachers for promoting student growth, which must make up at least half of educator evaluations. In an unusual step, legislators and Governor Hickenlooper recently ratified some of the details for the state’s coming new educator evaluation system. It’s by design, not by accident, that the policy holds principals to similar standards as teachers. Such a system gives school instructional leaders more reason to retain or remove teachers based on their professional effectiveness at helping students learn. Will it be perfect? No. Are […]

When I happened to mention to my mom and dad that I might blog about this issue, one of them said: “That’s the kind of topic you bring up when you want to break up a party.” Well, there isn’t any party going on here right now, so why not just throw the provocative question out there: Are teachers paid too much? Before you roll your eyes, pick up your coat and walk out in disgust, let me explain briefly. It’s not this precocious little 5-year-old who’s dumping broccoli on the birthday cake. It’s Andrew Biggs and Jason Richwine, from a couple of Washington think tanks, who a couple weeks ago released the report Assessing the Compensation of Public School Teachers. Sounds pretty innocent, doesn’t it? Just wait. They released the report at an event called “Are Public School Teachers Overpaid?” Now look. I could only begin to start explaining the research methods and the finer points of the debate. As a provocative way to bring attention to the topic of K-12 employee compensation, asking “Are Public School Teachers Overpaid?” is an effective way to bring attention to your work. And it definitely brought attention. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne […]