Posts tagged "curriculum"
The case for putting curriculum on a reform pedestal
While city education officials have made reforming teacher quality their first priority, others argue that by improving curriculum they could do more with less.
In the GothamSchools community section, former president of the Community Education Council for District 2 Matthew Levey writes that creating a citywide curriculum would not only help new and struggling teachers, it would be more efficient than having schools write their own.
, at 6:08 pmCurriculum reform must play an equal role in our efforts. A recent Brookings Institution report noted curriculum’s strong impact on student outcomes. Importantly, in a system as large as ours, curriculum can be developed centrally and replicated at almost no marginal cost, earning a far greater return on investment than merit bonuses for every qualifying teacher or hiring 10,000 high-quality teachers. In short, teacher quality is a long, expensive, politically difficult fix. Curriculum is comparatively fast, cheap, and also effective.
guest perspective
March 15, 2010
The Role of Curriculum in Education Reform
Despite a growing popular consensus that teacher quality is the most significant factor in academic achievement, as a parent and taxpayer the costs and practicality of this focus concern me. Chancellor Joel Klein focuses keenly on better teacher quality. I agree a strong teacher is crucial, especially for low-income students. But the value of our efforts to identify high-quality instructors and ease the removal of low-quality teachers is questionable.
For starters, the value-added measurements at the core of the relevant evaluation systems are nascent at best, as their developers readily admit. The Department of Education has calculated school report cards three different ways in the last three years; this is appropriate flexibility for a new concept, but not indicative of an established metric. Notwithstanding its motives, the teachers union raises a reasonable complaint that valued-added measurements are not ready for prime time. When reformers deny this, their credibility suffers as much as the union’s.
But still, let’s imagine we build the world’s best evaluation system. (more…)
time on task
May 20, 2009
DOE launches learning guides for stuck-at-home students
An exercise activity schedule from the DOE's learning guide.
The Department of Education doesn’t want healthy children who attend the as-of-now 19 schools closed because of swine flu fears to sit idly while they stay home. To keep them occupied, the DOE has made available optional “learn at home” activity guides, and Chancellor Joel Klein is urging everyone to participate.
The guides were compiled in short order by the DOE’s teaching and learning department and can be picked up in four locations or downloaded from the department’s Web site. Updated guides and a packet of work for high school students will be posted as soon as tonight, according to a DOE spokeswoman.
Chancellor Klein told reporters yesterday that he would like students who are able to complete the voluntary schoolwork. “I hope this is not viewed as a holiday,” he said.
The guides include daily schedules that break down four hours of learning into small blocks: 45 minutes each for English and math and half an hour each for vocabulary and science. Another hour and a half is divided evenly among fitness and health, arts and sampling educational television shows (one suggestion is Animal Planet’s “Meerkat Manor”) and Web sites. (more…)
Feb. 10: You’re invited!
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