Buechner Institute for Governance

At least Denver earns a high score

While we learned that Colorado's Race to the Top application was ranked 17 out of the 19 finalists by objective reviewers, Denver was ranked 4 out of 30 cities examined in aFordham Institute report issued yesterdayon urban district reform efforts and capacities. (Fordham probably didn't realize that the Race to the Top results announcement would dominate this week's ed news world, but hopefully this urban report will still get the attention it deserves). New Orleans, with its post-Katrina ref... READ MORE Posted September 07, 2010 at 08:06 AM

Two sides of teacher evaluation

Westword's Melanie Asmar wrote a fascinating article in a recent edition on teacher evaluation in DPS. While the larger frame is the toughening of teacher evaluation, the focus is on a particular teacher, Mary Pishney, at Bromwell Elementary. Pishney in many ways sounds like the epitome of a caring, hard-working, student-focused teacher.  A recent negative evaluation by a new principal has sent her life and career into a downward spiral than makes for somewhat painful and poignant readin... READ MORE Posted August 03, 2010 at 09:47 AM

The price of capricious evaluations — in D.C. and in schools

Reading the Race to the Top (RttT) reviewer comments and the recent analysis of scoring byThe New Teacher Projectis a painful thing for someone, like me,  who worked hard on the application. What is clear is that our fate depended upon a group of five reviewers with radically different views on the quality of our application.  According to New Teacher Project, Colorado's application had the widest differentiation in scores across all of the 16 finalists. The irony is that my anger, ... READ MORE Posted July 27, 2010 at 02:30 PM