History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Evaluating teachers is a delicate conversation
- 03-21-2011
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By Stephanie McCrummen/Washington Post
They met on an icy afternoon, Clay Harris, an elementary math teacher at the end of a hectic day, and Eric Bethel, one of the city's new master educators, there to render a verdict on Harris's teaching that could determine whether he kept his job. In polite, awkward silence, they walked to Harris's empty classroom at Beers Elementary School in Southeast Washington and settled in kid-size chairs at a low, yellow table. Bethel set up his laptop. Harris took out a piece of paper for notes and began tapping his pencil on it. "I didn't do everything perfectly," he said almost apologetically. Bethel smiled. "No one does," he said. This conference, one of hundreds underway across the District, offers a rare glimpse into the hypersensitive center of an education reform movement that has taken aim squarely at teachers. The idea, aggressively embraced by the Obama administration, is as straightforward as it is controversial: that teachers are the main factor in student growth - more than poverty, parents, curriculum, principals or other circumstance. (more...)
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