A front page story in the paper edition of the Florida Today caught my eye today in the supermarket. "Teaching tool or trouble brewing?" describes the implementation of the new requirements for teacher evaluation in Brevard County, Florida schools. By 2014, this evaluation system will be used to create a merit pay system, which will affect teacher pay in accordance with recent legislation. So far, the article has not appeared in electronic format.
According to the article, "school board members have heard that the evaluation process is not being consistently implemented in the schools - leading to frustration and confusion among some of the 5,000 teachers." The process speed bump seems to center on the teacher-written professional growth plan, which accounts for 50% of the evaluation procedure. Teachers in the district report different directions on how to proceed with professional growth plans, apparently at the school level. School district official, Joy Salamone, said the district would fix the issues if the union provided specifics.
The Florida Today article described at least two specific incidents in adequate fashion for the district to act. The new process is a dramatic change, so confusion can be expected. While teachers and administrators should be focused on school students, their attention is diverted to non-instructional tasks. Let's hope the school district can create and maintain an atmosphere where confusions can be clarified without fear and without substantial time taken from classroom instruction.
The other 50% of teacher evaluation will be based on student performance results on FCAT reading scores or standardized end-of-course exams. It is still unclear, at least to this community member, how student performance will apply to P.E. teachers and special education teachers and how the algorithm will be developed.
It is refreshing to see the Florida Today do some reporting on educational issues and hope they do more.
Reference: Ryan, Mackenzie, "Teaching tool or trouble brewing?," Florida Today, October 1, 2011.
A continuing commentary on education reform written by a non-educator for non-educators.
Showing posts with label teacher effectiveness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teacher effectiveness. Show all posts
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Follow Up to Data Mining
Posted for
Sandra in Brevard
The United Way is hosting community conversations to promote civil discourse on education reform across Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee this month. This “listening tour” on teacher effectiveness is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. If the scheduled ones are inconvenient, the United Way offers a way to form a convenient one, call them and they will explain how. Looks to me as though a civil conversation on educational reform is happening right here at Grumpyelder's place where there is no need to leave any personal information or details that could be mined later by an algorithm.
http://wiki.tothevillagesquare.org/display/EET/About+the+grant
Here’s some additional information:
Hillsborough County has a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
According to the Broad Foundation, Data Quality Control (DQC) begia assisting states in 2005 to build educational longitudinal data bases. The DQC website, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is listed as its founder.
The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation is a national venture philanthropy established by philanthropist Eli Broad to advance entrepreneurship for the public good in education, science and the arts. The Foundation funds the Broad Residency, which searches for individuals with MBA's and in industry for candidates to take rapid training to take on positions as superintendents and other managerial positions in our nation's school districts. The Broad Foundation subsidizes salaries once hired on. The Broad Center announced it's placed "the largest class of 42 early career executives into 28 public education systems, expanding for the first tie into state departments of education." One Broad Resident now works for Hillsborough County Public Schools.
The Broad Foundation received a $3.6 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to recruit and train as many as 18 Broad Residents over the next four years to provide management support to school districts and charter management organizations addressing the issue of teacher effectiveness. "Broad Residents will help school systems dramatically improve the recruitment, selection, training, placement and evaluation of teachers". The Gates Foundation grant is the first multi-million-dollar grant The Broad Residency has received from a funder other than The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.
"http://www.broadeducation.org/asset/0-100908tbrnewclassgates.pdf
All Broad Residents have M.B.A.s or other advanced degrees. Seventy-four percent of this year’s class, selected from a candidate pool of more than 2,500 applicants, come from leading business and law schools such as Harvard University, Duke University or the University of Michigan. Participants have an average of 10 years of experience, typically from a Fortune 500 or other major company. Fifty-two percent are people of color. The Broad Residency continues to be far more selective—at 2 percent—than the highest-rated M.B.A. programs. The Broad Residency (www.broadresidency.org) pays 50 percent of each Resident’s salary the first year, and 25 percent the second year, with the partner organization paying the balance, except where a Resident is already employed by that organization.
http://www.broadeducation.org/asset/0-100908tbrnewclassgates.pdf
© SandraInBrevard, All Rights Reserved
To see comments on this article,visit
http://grumpyelder-todayimgrumpyabout.blogspot.com/2011/01/follow-up-to-data-mining.html
Sandra in Brevard
The United Way is hosting community conversations to promote civil discourse on education reform across Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee this month. This “listening tour” on teacher effectiveness is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. If the scheduled ones are inconvenient, the United Way offers a way to form a convenient one, call them and they will explain how. Looks to me as though a civil conversation on educational reform is happening right here at Grumpyelder's place where there is no need to leave any personal information or details that could be mined later by an algorithm.
http://wiki.tothevillagesquare.org/display/EET/About+the+grant
Here’s some additional information:
Hillsborough County has a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
According to the Broad Foundation, Data Quality Control (DQC) begia assisting states in 2005 to build educational longitudinal data bases. The DQC website, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is listed as its founder.
The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation is a national venture philanthropy established by philanthropist Eli Broad to advance entrepreneurship for the public good in education, science and the arts. The Foundation funds the Broad Residency, which searches for individuals with MBA's and in industry for candidates to take rapid training to take on positions as superintendents and other managerial positions in our nation's school districts. The Broad Foundation subsidizes salaries once hired on. The Broad Center announced it's placed "the largest class of 42 early career executives into 28 public education systems, expanding for the first tie into state departments of education." One Broad Resident now works for Hillsborough County Public Schools.
The Broad Foundation received a $3.6 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to recruit and train as many as 18 Broad Residents over the next four years to provide management support to school districts and charter management organizations addressing the issue of teacher effectiveness. "Broad Residents will help school systems dramatically improve the recruitment, selection, training, placement and evaluation of teachers". The Gates Foundation grant is the first multi-million-dollar grant The Broad Residency has received from a funder other than The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.
"http://www.broadeducation.org/asset/0-100908tbrnewclassgates.pdf
All Broad Residents have M.B.A.s or other advanced degrees. Seventy-four percent of this year’s class, selected from a candidate pool of more than 2,500 applicants, come from leading business and law schools such as Harvard University, Duke University or the University of Michigan. Participants have an average of 10 years of experience, typically from a Fortune 500 or other major company. Fifty-two percent are people of color. The Broad Residency continues to be far more selective—at 2 percent—than the highest-rated M.B.A. programs. The Broad Residency (www.broadresidency.org) pays 50 percent of each Resident’s salary the first year, and 25 percent the second year, with the partner organization paying the balance, except where a Resident is already employed by that organization.
http://www.broadeducation.org/asset/0-100908tbrnewclassgates.pdf
© SandraInBrevard, All Rights Reserved
To see comments on this article,visit
http://grumpyelder-todayimgrumpyabout.blogspot.com/2011/01/follow-up-to-data-mining.html
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