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S2E13 – School for Scandal, Pt 2: Value-Added Messes
In part two of our series on the nationwide test cheating scandals of the late 2000s, we take a look at “Value Added Measurement” of a teacher’s impact on student learning, and how this deeply flawed construct lay at the heart of the malfeasance that followed.
Click here for the list of sources used.
Next episode will post on Friday, July 10th.
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S2E12 – School for Scandal, Pt 1: The Bee-Eater
Public education suffered a cascading series of scandals at the end of the last decade, when teachers and principals in towns and cities across 40 states were discovered to have cheated state accountability measures by altering student test results. We begin a three-part series exploring this national catastrophe with this week’s episode, where we focus on Michelle Rhee, controversial Chancellor of the Washington DC public schools, whose famous take-no-prisoners approach to student testing outcomes may well have set this saga in motion.
Click here for the list of sources used.
Next episode will post on Friday, July 3rd.
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S2E11 – Principals of power: Fannie, Annie and Nannie
In this episode we celebrate three groundbreaking and influential principals – Fannie Copland, Annie Cooper and Nannie Boroughs. All three are African American women who were either from, or spent most of their time in, Washington DC, and all overcame great odds to make their marks on American public education.
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Next episode will post on Friday, June 26, 2020
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S2E10- Race and justice in the classroom
In a time of sustained worldwide demonstrations for racial justice, conversations about race and equity are becoming more pervasive than they’ve been in decades. We continue one of those conversations this episode, by exploring what “culturally responsive teaching” is, and some specific ways in which it attempts to address issues of race in school classrooms.
Next episode will post on Friday, June 19th
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S2E9 – Accountability at a crossroads
Among the many aspects of schooling disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic is the system of accountability that has been the chief driving force in public education since 2001. This episode examines what that system looks like on the ground level of an urban school in Boston, as explained in an interview with school administrator Dr. Liana Tuller. She discusses how these powerful state evaluation mechanisms transformed her school for good and ill, and what changes she would like to see made in a post-pandemic educational landscape.
Next episode will post on June 12, 2020