Forty states submitted applications last week for the first round of the Race to the Top grant competition, which was significantly more participation than the Education Department had anticipated. To emphasize his administration’s commitment, President Obama announced that he would ask Congress for an additional $1.35 billion for the initiative. And in a new twist, individual school districts — not just states — will be eligible to compete for the extra funds

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Concerns About Race To The Top

A sea-change in education Maybe the strong response to the first round of the RttT grant competition marks a sea-change in education reform that we all should welcome.

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Chad Wick responded to Concerns About Race To The Top on January 28, 2010 08:42 PM

Two Sides to the Transparency Issue There are good arguments for and against keeping the RttT judges secret. I’ve laid them out on eduwonk Read and decide for yourself!…

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Andrew J. Rotherham responded to Concerns About Race To The Top on January 28, 2010 11:19 AM

Obama ‘In This For The Long Haul’ Editor’s Note: The video below contains an excerpt from National Journal’s interview with Duncan on Jan. 21. In the clip, Duncan responds to the following question: Is it a good idea to commit more funds to Race to the Top before we’ve seen results from the first round of grants?…

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Arne Duncan responded to Concerns About Race To The Top on January 25, 2010 07:37 AM

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten stirred education circles with a recent speech in which she called for a new template for evaluating public school teachers, including changes to the procedures for dismissal, formally known as due process. “Too often due process becomes glacial process,” Weingarten acknowledged. “We intend to change that.” The AFT tapped a top-notch attorney, Kenneth Feinberg , to oversee the effort to revise due process.

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Will AFT Teacher Evaluation Effort Succeed?

Getting Teacher Evaluations Right I’m grateful to National Journal and the blog contributors for making my recent National Press Club speech the focal point this week. And congratulations to Eliza and National Journal for earning a best education blog honor from the Washington Post

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Randi Weingarten responded to Will AFT Teacher Evaluation Effort Succeed? on January 22, 2010 05:43 PM

Tardy to Class (NOTE: If you want to save time, read Justin Cohen and Richard Rothstein. I’m not nearly as smart as they are, but I do try to add humor and alliteration.) At least when I come late to a party, I bring a nice hostess gift

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Steve Peha responded to Will AFT Teacher Evaluation Effort Succeed? on January 21, 2010 06:20 PM

Teacher Evaluation – The Lynchpin Developing valid and reliable approaches to teacher evaluation is the lynchpin in the successful implementation of a whole variety of education reform efforts: alternative compensation for educators; revising teacher tenure laws; more targeted investments in professional development; and most critically and timely, school turn around models being proposed for chronically low performing schools around the country. The national teacher unions have either opposed or stayed out of the debates around some of these reform conversations, but with the many opportunities for ARRA funding tied to progress in some of these key reform areas, the AFT…

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Gina Burkhardt responded to Will AFT Teacher Evaluation Effort Succeed? on January 20, 2010 04:06 PM

Teachers Are Not The Problem Randi Weingarten’s proposed model for evaluation of teachers is sound. The downside is that so many journalists and policymakers are not paying attention to the details of her proposal, which are crucial

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Diane Ravitch responded to Will AFT Teacher Evaluation Effort Succeed? on January 19, 2010 02:58 PM

The Same Old New Unionism We can applaud Weingarten’s proposals only if we ignore the history of similar union proposals in the past. NEA has had little to say about her speech because it already went through its “reform” period.

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Mike Antonucci responded to Will AFT Teacher Evaluation Effort Succeed? on January 19, 2010 10:00 AM

Last week’s speech by Randi Weingarten exemplifies what’s wrong with teachers unions and their control over America’s education system.

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Jeanne Allen responded to Will AFT Teacher Evaluation Effort Succeed? on January 19, 2010 08:10 AM

It is no surprise to anyone involved in education that evaluation of educators needs great improvement. Such evaluation has never had high enough priority to garner the money needed to pay for the substantial educator work time needed to train evaluators well and use the information helpfully. Randi Weingarten’s speech and the AFT model correctly point out that the main purpose of teacher evaluation should be formative, to support and guide professional learning

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Monty Neill responded to Will AFT Teacher Evaluation Effort Succeed? on January 19, 2010 08:10 AM

A False Choice is No Choice I’ve noticed that many people who support the “Parent Trigger” law see it as a mechanism for improving school choice. But more choices doesn’t always mean better choices.

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Steve Peha responded to Should Parents Dictate School Reforms? on January 13, 2010 02:53 PM

The Parent Trap Should parents dictate school reforms? Well, “dictate” isn’t exactly the word I’d use, but parents should certainly influence reforms – just like other citizens. Alas, the “Parent Trigger” law in California has little to do with this.

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Steve Peha responded to Should Parents Dictate School Reforms? on January 11, 2010 05:02 PM

Ridiculous and Bad Idea I have the utmost respect for parents of school children, as they are the most important stakeholders in education. It is, after all, their children whose lives are affected by what happens in the schools. And they, even more than teachers, can affect how well their children work and behave in school.

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Diane Ravitch responded to Should Parents Dictate School Reforms? on January 11, 2010 10:49 AM

The Parent Trigger is a fabulous idea! Not because it will – by itself – turn around many low-performing California schools. But because how it will change the conversation among parents, community activists and school boards across California.

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Bill Jackson responded to Should Parents Dictate School Reforms? on January 11, 2010 07:58 AM

The United Kingdom Open University has experimented with a range of information and communication technologies (ICT) to support learners and foster the development of learning communities, including online resources, email, e-messages, SMS messaging, and Second Life. The initial creation of information and resources to support study has been followed by the expansion of e-communications and interactive activities, which form part of a revitalised learner support blend, aimed at reducing the ‘distance’ in distance education for the learner. Here we describe how ICT has been used by two major learner support projects to strengthen student identity in the context of a programme of study, and to support students at key points in their learning journey

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Narrowing the distance: using e-learner support to enhance the student experience – Patrick Kelly and Charlotte Stevens, EURODL

One of the core theories of distance education is Michael Graham Moore’s Theory of Transactional Distance that provides the broad framework of the pedagogy of distance education and allows the generation of almost infinite number of hypotheses for research.

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Online Learning: Reconsidering Moore’s Transactional Distance Theory – Yiannis Giossos, EURODL

This paper describes a qualitative study which took place over a two year period with academic staff engaged on a blended Masters programme delivered with the learning environment based around problem-based learning. At the pedagogical level, transformative practice has the potential to engage students as critical thinkers, by encouraging them to be both participatory and active

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The nexus of problem-based learning and learning technology: Does it enable transformative practice? – Roisin Donnelly, EURODL

Education in the twenty-first century is underpinned by theories of inclusion and practices of open and distance learning (Aldrich, 2003; Richards, 2004). New concerns are replacing the traditional views on the impossibility of integrating pedagogy and technology (Barab et al, 2004; Roblyer et al, 2000). Supporting learning in the digital age looks at devising innovative methods to utilize ICT in education for maximalist inclusion of learners accompanied by a reformed pedagogy that frames quality in the learning activity by raising the interest and involvement of the student in dialogic learner centred approaches

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ICT supported learning: dialogic forums in project work – Hayat Al-Khatib, EURODL