The Education Evolving Blog

Ken Futernick, director of the School Turnaround Center for the California-based organization WestEd, recently had a keen insight on why teachers behave as they do—bargain collectively, resist accepting certain frameworks of accountability, become frustrated with management. He turns attention from the people, to the structures in which they work.

Bill Gates gave a speech in Louisville last week to the Council of Chief State Schools Officers (CCSSO), where he argued a need to address school financing problems by rethinking teacher pay. Instead of seniority and education level, what could be a mechanism for effectively determining teacher pay? In some schools, teachers set it themselves.

Superintendent of schools in Edmonton, Alberta describes how schools in that district have begun adopting alternative assessment programs that do not rely on regular grades to determine student performance. By eliminating the impact of daily performance measures on a student’s final grade the learning processes become more personalized by releasing the pressure for every student to produce the same end product.

Teacher-run schools continue to appear in the news. In this interview in Education Week’s Teacher Magazine, EE partners Ted Kolderie and Joe Graba describe characteristics that begin to emerge in schools that are run by teachers.