New Study: Ignoring Teacher Performance in Layoffs Hurts Kids

August 10, 2015

Matt Barnum | The 74

Performance trumps seniority when it comes to deciding teacher layoffs — if the goal is to minimize negative effects on student learning.

A new study by Brown University professor Matthew Kraft finds that laying off teachers based on how long they have been in the classroom rather than how effective they are hurts student achievement in math. It’s the first evidence based on actual layoffs that the policy known as LIFO, or “last-in-first-out,” has harmful consequences for students.

Instead of Teaching, NY Schools Become Fraud Factories

August 2, 2015

By Post Editorial Board

“The whole city should be just as outraged as Melissa Mejia, the William Cullen Bryant HS “grad” who revealed in Sunday’s Post that she’d been awarded a fraudulent diploma.

Well, the whole city except for the insiders who conduct (or just wink at) such fraud all across New York’s schools system.”

Key & Peele Imagines What It’d Be Like if We Obsessed Over Teachers the Way We Do Athletes

July 28, 2015

By Aisha Harris, Slate

By now, the lament about how our culture privileges athletics over education is an old one—but Key & Peele has breathed new life into it in their latest sketch, “TeachersCenter.” A spot-on parody of SportsCenter’s hyperbole-laden talking heads, busy CGI ticker screens, and obsessive play-by-plays, the clip cleverly reimagines athletes as the educators we entrust our children to every day.

A Lesson in Teaching: Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carmen Farina Oversee Significant Staff Turnover at Two Troubled Schools

July 16, 2015

New York Daily News Editorial Board

“Two of the city’s worst-performing schools are on track to get a desperately needed infusion of fresh teaching talent.

Give credit to Mayor de Blasio, Chancellor Carmen Fariña and leaders at Automotive and Boys and Girls high schools for taking a crucially important step forward.”

America’s Promise to a New Generation

July 5, 2015

By Geoffrey Canada
New York Daily News

“In the 1960s, when I was a young boy growing up in the South Bronx, the poorest Congressional District in the United States, children around me were being lost to gangs, crime, drugs and lousy schools.

I, though, was sustained by a dream. My mother, a single woman, and my grandparents convinced me that if I went to school, worked hard and graduated from college, I could get out of the neighborhood, get a good job and live a “good life.””

Campbell Brown: Bad Laws, Unions Keep Dangerous Teachers on the Job

May 19, 2015

By Jason Russell
Washington Examiner

“NEW ORLEANS — Abusive teachers prey on students in classrooms across the country — and too often there’s nothing parents can do about it. Laws actually protect many teachers from being fired even when it’s clear they are guilty of wrongdoing.”

The Importance of Teacher Evaluations

May 17, 2015

By Jenny Sedlis
City & State

“The greatest single factor impacting a student’s ability to learn is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. But right now, parents across the state cannot count on a system that rates 95 percent of teachers across New York state as effective, despite the fact that just a third of public school students are considered proficient in English and math. Something doesn’t add up and something has to change so students across the state get the education they deserve no matter what school they attend. Central to that improvement is developing a better system to assess the educators.”

[VIDEO] Derrell Bradford on Teacher Evaluations

May 16, 2015

By Gerson Borrero
City & State

“As the unresolved battle surrounding the New York State assessment of students’ academic achievement rages, City & State Editor-at-Large Gerson Borrero discusses the issue with Derrell Bradford, Executive Director of the New York Campaign for Achievement Now and a member of High Achievement New York.”

Video Here

Partnership for Educational Justice