By Elizabeth A. Harris, The New York Times

“The de Blasio administration announced a deal on Wednesday that would change how teachers and principals are evaluated, relying more on the work students do every day in the classroom.

While nearly all of New York City teachers receive the highest marks on their evaluations, their students do not do nearly as well. Seventy percent of city students graduate from high school, and fewer than half of those are ready for college, according to city measurements. The changes announced Wednesday seemed unlikely to significantly change that discrepancy.”

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By Ralia Polechronis, Star Ledger

“There’s no shortage of debates about public education, but advocates from all sides should agree that a school’s primary purpose is to educate students.

And when it comes to educating students, teachers matter. Teachers are the heartbeat of public education. Teachers are the most significant in-school factor influencing whether a child learns in a classroom.

What, then, are we to make of New Jersey’s seniority-based teacher layoff law? Does it serve a child’s best interest? Is it even in the best interest of great teachers?”

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By Josh Verges, Pioneer Press

“Four years after a coalition of civic, business and education leaders committed to closing academic achievement gaps in the Twin Cities, the task appears as daunting as ever.

At its annual day of reckoning Wednesday at St. Paul College, Generation Next officials reported ‘achievement levels are low and there are few indications they are improving.’

High school graduation rates for Twin Cities students of color have risen dramatically, as they have across the country; but pass rates on the state’s reading tests are flat, and they are down in math.”

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By Tom Davis, Morristown Patch

“New New Jersey teacher evaluation data was released this past week, and you may be surprised – and you may not even like – how your school district was ranked (see list below).

Judging by the reaction of the state’s largest teachers’ union, educators probably won’t like it either.

The state Department of Education released its second annual teacher evaluation report, finding that 1.6 percent of New Jersey’s public school teachers were rated ‘ineffective’ or ‘partially effective’ in 2014-15. But the number of school districts that reported these numbers was small (see list at the bottom of this story).”

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By Matt Barnum, The 74

“Two months ago, a study came out that should have shocked anyone paying attention to the education policy debate of the past few decades.

The research, released by the U.S. Department of Education, showed that in 26 districts across the country there was virtually no difference in the quality of teachers instructing low-income students and those teaching higher-income ones. The results do not suggest that all teachers are equal, but rather that differences in their quality are not closely tied to how well off their students are.”

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Thomas B. Fordham Institute

“Countless studies have demonstrated that teacher quality is the most important school-based determinant of student learning, and that removing ineffective teachers from the classroom could greatly benefit students. Consequently, many states have reformed their teacher evaluation systems in an effort to differentiate between effective and ineffective teachers, with an eye toward parting ways with the latter.

But is dismissing poorly performing teachers truly feasible in America today? After all the political capital (and real capital) spent on reforming teacher evaluation, can districts actually terminate ineffective teachers who have tenure or have achieved veteran status?”

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By Emma Brown, The Washington Post

“Mya Alford dreams of studying chemical engineering in college, but the high school junior is at a disadvantage: Last year, her chemistry teacher at Pittsburgh’s Westinghouse Academy quit just weeks after school started, and the class was taught by a substitute who, as Alford put it, ‘didn’t know chemistry.’

The year before, there was no permanent biology teacher until December. Students at Westinghouse, a high-poverty school in one of Pittsburgh’s roughest neighborhoods, often see a rotating cast of substitutes, Alford said.”

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By Derrell Bradford, The 74

“Back in September, with the presidential election and Freddie Gray’s death as backdrops, my sister organization MarylandCAN hosted 50CAN’s annual summit in Baltimore, which included a dinner at the church of one of its board members. The city’s Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood, where Gray lived and where I grew up many years ago, had been on my mind a lot during the days leading up to the trip, and I felt distant as we boarded the bus and started our ride to the church from downtown.”

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By Heather Kays | Watchdog.org

“To the casual observer, a law requiring layoffs of competent teachers while ineffective teachers stay employed might not seem like it is in the best interest of students. Enter the state of New Jersey, where the law requires exactly that.

So six parents from Newark filed a lawsuit this month challenging the constitutionality of the state’s 2012 legislative overhaul of the tenure system, which made tenure more difficult to achieve while preserving the principle of last-in-first-out (LIFO) for teacher layoffs.”

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