For 10 months, Carolyn Abbott waited for the other shoe to drop. In April 2011, Abbott, who teaches mathematics to seventh- and eighth-graders at the Anderson School, a citywide gifted-and-talented school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, received some startling news, Education News reports. Her score on the Teacher Data Report, the New York City Department of Education’s effort to isolate a teacher’s contribution to her students’ performance on New York State’s math and English Language Arts (ELA) tests in grades four through eight, said that 32 percent of seventh-grade math teachers and 0 percent of eighth-grade math teachers scored below her. She was, according to this report, the worst eighth-grade math teacher in New York City, where she has taught since 2007…
…Read MorePodcast Series: Innovations in Education
Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.
Senator introduces legislation to limit class size
U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) introduced the Facilitating Outstanding Classrooms Using Size Reduction (FOCUS) Act of 2011 [bill summary, PDF], which the Senator says would provide states with the resources they need to reduce class sizes across the early grade levels in order to provide students and teachers with an educational environment that encourages maximum student academic growth, Education News reports. Murray’s bill will also put in place evaluation tools to assess the program’s effectiveness…
…Read MoreFight among N.J. public schools over Facebook money
Last fall Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg donated $100 million to improve local schools, but some are worried the money will be funneled to the wrong places, Education News reports. It was roughly nine months ago when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced a $100 million gift to improve public schools in Newark, N.J. The long-awaited plan to spend the money is finally now starting to take shape as a new superintendent has been brought in to lead the contentious effort. But in New Jersey, initial jubilation over the gift has turned into protests, suspicion and a belief that students will never benefit from the money…
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