Teachers, Evaluating Teachers and Schools, and Institutions

Here is an article about teachers taking to the street in Mexico about these same issues of evaluation.  Interesting that the issue comes up without much critical analysis within the first few paragraphs.  But, the LA Times has pretty much proclaimed to be anti-teacher (they might argue anti-teacher union, but on the face of their work, it is anti-teacher) -- at least, their expose, depending on scores and not any other objective measure, outed teachers as "failures" without really dissecting the issue.  It saddens me to write this because the Los Angeles Times is frequently one of my favorite sources of information -- even so, their work (like any journalism) should never be taken uncritically.

This is an interview with Michelle Rhee ... so you can get from her own words what she thinks she is doing.

The American Indian Charter School is being threatened with closure due to financial improprieties... even though the school has consistently delivered high scores on California's measure of schools.  I am not sure how to feel about it, really, because it seems that NCLB by definition is by any means necessary.  So, they did whatever they wanted, but they got the results that the state and the feds wanted... which is more important?

The federal appeals court thinks it is okay to outlaw affirmative action in California's public universities... and a group of conservative academics are taking whacks at "liberal" education, again.  Their website, particularly the "get involved" page, is quite sobering and frightening.
****UPDATE ... tooling around elsewhere (yes, when I should have been writing), I found this article about a conservative academic that does research on the impact of liberal professors on their students ... and the surprise he found when he actually did research, rather than having people troll around the internet for ammunition.  Fascinating ... I am guessing the guys over at National Association of Scholars (or their California affiliate) didn't bother to see if there was any empirical data to back up their claims before they issued their report.  Hmmm....