Congratulations to the General Assembly for passing groundbreaking legislation on teacher evaluation and alternative certification. The legislative process brought together all the education stakeholders to produce a forward-looking and durable set of reforms that will help Illinois school children for years to come and better position Illinois for up to $400 million from the federal “Race to the Top” competition.

The State Journal-Register offered wrapups of the Senate vote Wednesday and the House vote Monday.
The votes were also covered by the Quad-City Times and Illinois Public Radio (pc link here, mac link avail here).

The Chicago Tribune editorialized on the legislation earlier in the week.

  0 Comments

A study released yesterday (June 1) by The New Teacher Project describes how school systems “treat all teachers as interchangeable parts, not professionals. Excellence goes unrecognized and poor performance goes unaddressed. This indifference to performance disrespects teachers and gambles with students’ lives.”  The study looked at 12 school districts, including three in Illinois, that range in size, geographic location and teacher evaluation approach. But, the study concludes, the outcomes are strikingly similar across the districts.

Here’s the link to the report and the The New Teacher Project website.

Here’s links to media coverage: EdWeek (access compliments of edweek.org), and from two cities with districts in the study: The Denver Post and The Cincinnati Enquirer.

  0 Comments

The National Governor’s Association says only innovative human capital reforms will insure the future health of our economy and our competitiveness with other nations. In a new report, the NGA calls for fundamental changes in the way teachers and principals are recruited, trained, certified, evaluated and compensated. In the words of NGA Chair Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell “To improve student achievement and outcomes, states must invest strategically in our education workforce.”

Here is the press release page from the nga.org.
Here is the Education Week article. (Article access compliments of edweek.org)
Here is a pdf of the report.

  0 Comments