Okay the debates continue: To add more fuel to the “teacher effects” fire, Charles Clotfelter, Sunny Ladd, and Jacob Vigdor recently authored a study* finding that — yes indeed –- teachers’ credentials do matter for student achievement (defined here by high school end of course tests). They write that students ‘exposed’ to a teacher ‘with very weak credentials’ (defined as one with no experience, low licensure test scores, a lateral entry license, certified but not in subject-specific or related field, …

I too, like Denis in his latest post, wish “good luck” to Michelle Rhee in her new role as Chancellor of the DC school system. She has one of the toughest jobs in all of public education — managing and leading a complex urban school district – with high rates of uncredential teachers who are apt to exit the school system almost as quickly as they are to enter it.

Denis is right that her appointment represents at least …

Michelle A. Rhee (CEO of the New Teacher Project), who I had the pleasure of interviewing last week (with her opposite number, Jonathan Schnur CEO of New Leaders for New Schools), knows how to keep a secret, a trait that will stand her in good stead in her new incarnation as Chancellor of the DC school system. (During a one hour presentation before nearly 200 education reformers at EduStat 2007 Michelle said nary a word about her …

Thank you blog readers. This event was a ton of fun and I had a blast meeting everyone. The best part of EduStat 2007 was the energy of the people in the room. With these people at the helm, I have a renewed confidence in the future of education in America.

If anyone wants to further discuss any of these issues, please comment on the posts, or e-mail me at njulka at gmail dot com. Farewell!

As we gathered in comfortable chairs in the lobby and sat in a circle introducing ourselves, I was touched at the warmth of the setting and the difference it can make in setting the tone for a discussion. The topic of discussion was around the development of human capital, specifically looking at the connections between teacher qualifications, professional development and ultimately student achievement. As we introduced ourselves it was amazing how many SchoolNet staff were in attendance. This is truly …

Even though her speech was unfortunately interrupted by the schedule, Stacey Childress delivered a phenomenal speech on how to manage urban school districts. I may be a little biased because Childress is a Harvard Business School lecturer, but out of fairness, the subtitle of her Harvard Business Review article is: “Big-city school systems aren’t businesses and can’t be managed like them. They need their own framework for creating successful strategies and coherent organizations.”

Her approach to analyzing and improving …

Wichita Public Schools has a unique approach to recruiting qualified and effective math and science teachers. Unable to successfully recruit from their home state or from national recruiting events, they have decided to reap the benefits of the post war relationship between the U.S. and the Philippines.

Their challenges are common to many schools. High rates of retirement, too much young teacher turnover and difficulty recruiting qualified candidates. One solution has been to recruit teachers from …

Per all the recent back and forth about “tenure” and the ongoing situation in Los Angeles, here’s a link to Green Dot Public School’s teacher contract. You can also visit the NCTQ database to see how it compares to other contracts.

Michael Preston and Frank A. Moretti of New Media Teaching and Learning at Columbia University are right on point for teacher 2.0. How, they ask, can we use the democratization of the Internet and the growing ease of Internet tools for the benefit of teacher preparation? This, Moretti reminds us, is not a new question. Since Adam Smith we have been trying to figure out whether the technologies we create to facilitate our work lead …

Sharnell Jackson, Chief e-Learning Officer of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), just finished giving us a case study of the Chicago Public Schools. She went through many of the details of her implementation of an extensive technology overhaul using SchoolNet as the “little engine that could.”

Before she started her technology reforms, the system was unbelievable. Nobody in the the department even knew how many schools were in the system. They were using a 37-year-old student information system. But, through Sharnell’s …