Our take on Quality Counts

by Kate Walsh and Sandi Jacobs It's January, so it must be time for Quality Counts, Education Week's annual report card...

On how the NEA spends its money and why some teachers don't like it

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that some teachers in Utah have abandoned the state teacher union, an affiliate...

Labor tensions--and procrastination-- in Minnesota

Tired of its school districts slow pace in negotiating new teacher contracts, the Minnesota state legislature has imposed a deadline...

Pink slips for hundreds of Chicago teachers

In an unprecedented move, Chicago Public Schools is dismissing the faculty and staff working in eight of its schools. This...

The UFT: Willing to put skin in the game

While teachers unions generally oppose standard school accountability measures, New York's UFT is the first to propose an alternative....

Is it valid? New evaluation tool for principals

A new evaluation tool for principals has come on the market. Named "VAL-ED" (groan--we did), it purports to measure leadership...

Principal training from Georgia to Texas

States continue to equate high entry standards into teaching with a pile of coursework requirements, regardless of their actual value....

Health insurance gets competitive in Michigan

Necessity drives competition. A bill passed by the Michigan legislature last fall will require school districts to solicit...

Multicultural math: Count to ten with Paolo Friere

Amidst relentlessly bleak international comparisons of the math performance of U.S. students, the math preparation provided by ed schools is...

Looking for a good fit

That's right. NCTQ is hiring. We're looking to fill two new positions--Issues Director and Field Director. See here...

Errata for ETS

When we're wrong, we're wrong. And we certainly were wrong last month about our unnecessarily gloomy interpretation of a...

Farewell to Lew Solomon

by Kate Walsh No matter how many times it happens, it's always hard to lose friends. It's hard to understand how...

Paging Pollyanna! ETS releases rosy report on teacher quality

Evidence that the nation's teacher pool is attracting greater talent is welcome indeed, but it's hard not to take issue...

Three stooges tussle for control of LA schools

In the nation's second largest school district, we're seeing a case of life imitating art--if the Three Stooges can...

How much of a problem is teacher absenteeism?

A new study examining teacher absentee rates in North Carolina has turned up some surprising results. Yes, teachers take off...