League Tables of Teachers Published

Posted on Friday September 3, 2010

A controversy has erupted in the United States over the publication of performance ratings of individual teachers. >> Read on...

Curriculum Matters as Well as Teachers

Posted on Wednesday August 25, 2010

The measurement of value added by teachers for the award of bonuses for increasing students’ test scores is likely to be confounded by curriculum effects. Some curriculum programs have a greater effect on student achievement than others according to a new study. >> Read on...

Measures of Value Added by Teachers and Schools Have Large Errors

Posted on Saturday August 21, 2010

High performing teachers and schools could miss out on proposed bonus payments while average teachers and schools are wrongly rated as highly effective because of large errors in measures of value added to student test results by teachers. >> Read on...

The Release of More Cane Toads

Posted on Thursday August 19, 2010

Cane toads that will destroy Australian education. A review of education policy initiatives by a former director of primary education in Queensland. >> Read on...

Duels of Faith in Teacher Bonuses

Posted on Tuesday August 17, 2010

Both a Labor and a Coalition Government will implement teacher bonus schemes without regard to the evidence that cash bonuses for teachers have little impact on student achievement. Once again, faith rules over evidence in formulating education policy. >> Read on...

Lessons from the US for Labor’s Cash Bonuses for Teachers and Schools

Posted on Friday August 13, 2010

Far from improving student achievement as Julia Gillard asserts, linking cash bonuses and teacher evaluation to student test scores is likely to narrow teaching and produce misleading and unreliable assessments of teachers. >> Read on...

Computers Widen Achievement Gap in Schools

Posted on Wednesday July 28, 2010

A new study finds that greater access to home computers and high speed internet reduces reading and mathematics achievement and increases racial and socio-economic achievement gaps. >> Read on...

Seven Principles of Education Change

Posted on Saturday July 3, 2010

A group of teachers called Teachers Letters to Obama has presented the President with an alternative vision based on seven principles of education change. It would be a good place to start for the Gillard Government as well. >> Read on...

Teacher Performance Pay has not Increased Student Results

Posted on Wednesday June 16, 2010

Evaluation reports on the major teacher performance pay programs trialled in the United States in recent years generally show that performance pay does not increase student results. >> Read on...

Teach for America is Not the Success Claimed

Posted on Friday June 11, 2010

The likely success of Teach for Australia has been brought into question by a new report on Teach for America. The report found that research evidence shows that credentialed beginning teachers have better student results than Teach for America teachers. >> Read on...

Performance Pay Scheme Fails to Improve Student Results

Posted on Saturday June 5, 2010

One of the most ambitious efforts to link teacher pay to student achievement in the United States has done little to improve test scores or retain teachers according to an independent study released this week. >> Read on...

Noel Pearson’s Radical Hope for Education and Equality in Australia

Posted on Thursday November 5, 2009

A review of an essay by Noel Pearson which argues for a rigorous schooling for Aboriginal students while preserving their culture. >> Read on...

The Testing Obsession in Canada

Posted on Wednesday October 14, 2009

Students have to be able to read, write and do arithmetic in order to do well in other subjects. Having a standardized test for just these core skills, rather than everything that is taught in a school year, would mean that students don’t spend five hours a day for an entire week in a high anxiety testing regime to please some distant high inquisitor of education. >> Read on...

Student Results in Australia are High, but Very Unequal and not Improving

Posted on Sunday September 27, 2009

The latest results from the National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) generated a wave of self-congratulation from Education Ministers around Australia which should be qualified. >> Read on...

Disadvantaged by the Revolution

Posted on Tuesday September 15, 2009

The Building the Education Revolution program has not quite been the revolution expected by some government schools. >> Read on...

Studies Show that Smaller Schools Do Better than Large Schools

Posted on Tuesday September 1, 2009

Small schools do better than large schools on a variety of school variables including student achievement according to a new review of studies on the effects of school size on education. >> Read on...

Obama’s Plan To Link Teacher Evaluation to Student Achievement Draws Strong Criticism from all Sides

Posted on Saturday August 29, 2009

At the end of July, President Barack Obama and US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, announced that grants worth $4.35 billion would be made available to states to further education change. >> Read on...

Performance Pay Schemes Are Unreliable and Misleading

Posted on Thursday July 30, 2009

It seems that performance pay based on gains in student achievement may not be so good at identifying good teachers as its advocates claim. >> Read on...

Finland’s Success in Literacy

Posted on Wednesday July 22, 2009

Pirjo Sinko, Counsellor of Education for the Finnish National Board of Education, delivered a keynote address at the AATE/ALEA National Conference in Hobart on 11 July. < >> Read on...

Why Merit Pay Won’t Work

Posted on Thursday April 23, 2009

Diane Ravitch comments on the Obama administration’s plan to pay teachers based on their students’ “value-added” test scores. >> Read on...

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