October 22, 2008
Last night, EdWeek.org hosted a debate on education policy in the new administration. Ed advisors to the Obama and McCain campaigns met at Teachers College to answer questions about NCLB, student achievement, and teachers.
The writeup from EdWeek (hint: not impressed).
Despite that, I found the debate really interesting and worth the watch. The candidates are too busy to put in more than a minute or two toward education, and they avoid specifics on any policy so as to stay out of the weeds. These advisors, however, are living in the details of proposals and plans. So, while the debate didn’t reframe what we already knew about the candidates’ general attitudes, we did get a bit more into their thinking, philosophy, and a picture of what might actually happen in an administration. Video should be up at edweek.org this afternoon.
UPDATE: The video’s up, but it’s behind a registration wall. EdWeek is good folks, though, and worth a registration to watch the debate. Click here.
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Posted by Bobby Cupp
October 15, 2008
(Note: This message has been sent to 2008 Summer Teachers via e-mail. If you did not receive this note in your e-mail, please send me a note so that we can make sure you’re on the list.)
Let me guess: you’re back at school or starting a new job, and you’re having a hard time sharing with your friends what happened to you this summer. The basics are easy enough to explain: you taught a class, the kids were amazing, you worked really hard and stayed up really late, and so on. As you’re explaining the details, though, there is something essential and powerful that is left out. It’s pretty much impossible to tell someone else what the Breakthrough experience really feels like. When you run into another Breakthrough teacher, though, something clicks into place and those just-skimming-the-surface stories take on their true depth. You really taught. You really did something.
That bond is special, and it might be my favorite part of working for you. I get to spend my days meeting and serving past, current, and future Breakthrough teachers as they plan their summers and embark on their careers in education. Now that the summer is over, we have some work to do together, and I wanted to send a note to let you know what this fall has in store for us.
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Posted by Bobby Cupp
October 6, 2008
Ed in ’08’s Roy Romer posts this about the DC plan. Much better basic breakdown than I offered.
Washington Aims to Improve Its Local Schools (Ed in ‘08)
Romer lays out the DC plan and says this:
Rhee’s plan would place teachers on two tracks. The first track would remain the same – teachers can opt to maintain tenure and the traditional salary structure. The second track, which would be completely voluntary, would provide bonuses for those teachers who opted out of tenure. In other words, they would have a strong incentive to improve student performance.
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Posted by Bobby Cupp
October 6, 2008
Big drama in DC.
We’ve talked before on this blog about teacher merit pay, unions, and the difficult efforts at reform. Things have come to a head on this issues in the District, where schools chancellor Michelle Rhee has made a “take no prisoners” approach to fixing that city’s disastrous public school system.
Here’s the long view, as I understand it. Faced with years of failed reforms and interminable disputes between the schools, the teachers, and the municipal officials, the city hired Michelle Rhee as the new Chancellor. Rhee is a TFA alum, and the founder of The New Teacher Project (disclosure: TNTP is a friend of Breakthrough, and their programs can be a good next step if you want to teach in distressed areas). DC also gave Rhee a mandate to improve student performance by any means necessary and unprecedented power over the bulk of the school system. Rhee has, since she started in the summer of 2007, become a lightning rod for controversy, alienating just about everyone in her drive to improve the quality of teaching in the schools.
Now the focus is on implementing a merit pay program in DC schools. As we’ve discussed before, merit pay is generally popular with younger teachers (who want to be rewarded for their ambition and new ideas), and distrusted by the older, more experienced teachers who see it as a risk to the Union-based security they’ve fought long and hard for. Rhee’s top priority is getting the bad teachers out of the system and drawing the good ones in with general pay increases and additional incentives for performance. The right-to-fire has become a big part of the story. Now it’s gotten personal, with some Union members accusing Rhee (a Korean-American woman) of targeting them for firing because of their race.
Here’s where things are now. Rhee asked the Washington Teachers Union to approve her plan, but President George Parker decided to not bring it to a vote (he’s torn because he sees the need for reform, but his members think Rhee is trying to kill the union). Now Rhee is moving ahead anyway with her rumored “Plan B,” which will allow the firings of underperforming teachers, institute some incentives for performance, but without the general increases. Plan B is the stick without the carrot. It’ll be interesting to see where this goes.
“While I am disappointed that we cannot announce an agreement on a new teacher contract, I am moving forward to ensure that all adults in this district are accountable for high performance.” Michelle Rhee, Open Letter to DCPS
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Posted by Bobby Cupp
October 3, 2008
In last night’s Vice Presidential Debate, education and teaching got a mention, briefly.
We report, you decide:
1:10 - Gov. Palin:
I know that education you are passionate about. And with your wife being a teacher for 30 years — and God bless her; her reward is in heaven, right? I say, too, with education, America needs to be putting a lot more focus on that, and our schools have got to be really ramped up in terms of the funding that they are deserving. Teachers needed to be paid more. I come from a — a house full of schoolteachers. My grandma was. My dad, who’s in the audience today, he’s a schoolteacher, had been for many years. My brother, who I think is the best school teacher in the year — and here’s a shout out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School. You get extra credit for watching this debate. (Laughter.)Education in America has been, in some sense, in some of our states, just accepted to be a little bit lax. And we have got to increase the standards. No Child Left Behind was implemented, is not doing the job, though. We need flexibility in No Child Left Behind.We need to put more of an emphasis on the profession of teaching. We need to make sure that education in either one of our agendas I think absolute top of the line. My kids, as public school participants right now, it’s near and dear to my heart. I’m very, very concerned about where we’re going in education, and we have got to ramp it up and put more attention in that arena.
1:14 - Sen. Biden
I hope we’ll get back to education, because I don’t know any government program that John is supporting — not early education, more money for it. The reason No Child Left Behind was left behind was the money was left behind. We didn’t fund it.
Take a look for yourself at C-Span’s Debate Hub. Video after the jump.
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Posted by Bobby Cupp
October 2, 2008
Summerbridge Cambridge is now Breakthrough Cambridge.
With this move, our friends in the Commonwealth are better able to take advantage of (and contribute to) our good name nationwide. Their website also gets that “new logo smell.” Yay!
Visit http://www.breakthroughcambridge.org!
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Posted by Bobby Cupp
September 23, 2008
Jamie hasn’t posted on TeachBreakthroughs before, but she sent the letter below to Lois Loofbourrow after they met this summer. Â Lois sent it to me, and I couldn’t wait to share it with you.
Dear Lois,
This summer was an amazing experience for me all around. Teaching English was really amazing, and made me realize what a passion that I had for teaching in general. I was totally amazed by all of my students. Each and every student had taught me something new, and I was consistently impressed by their quality of work and enthusiasm. In fact, I think that I have learned as much from them that they have learned from me, if not more.
These past eight weeks have flown by, and even though lesson plans and nearly-constant observations loomed forever on the horizon, this has been one of the most amazing experiences that I have had the pleasure of being involved in in my entire life. It was so rewarding, seeing the students grow, and change over the short six weeks that they were with us. I realize now that I would have done things differently, had I known that our time with them would have been this short. Overall, I feel that these six weeks have taught me more than any semester-long Education course ever could have.
I was so glad to have been chosen for this grand social experiment. My friends are all shocked when I told them that I taught this summer, and yet is seems to natural. The word “Teacher” rolls off of the tongue now. Oh, what a short eight weeks can do.
In short, I am changed for the better from this summer at Breakthrough Miami. I know that I’ve come a long way, and I hope that my students have come just as long as I have. Thank you for creating this amazaing program. This has been an awesome summer, and I hope to maybe return again next year.
Sincerely,
Jamie Pflug
English Teacher
Breakthrough Miami
Summer of 2008
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Posted by Bobby Cupp
