WP Answer Sheet: Teachers: What we need to do to fix schools/National Education Policy Center: New Report Finds For-Profit EMOs Falling Short of AYP Targets/Delco Times Opinion: Pennsylvania Teachers' Unions Are Losing Their Cool

Washington Post Answer Sheet Blog

Posted at 2:10 PM ET, 12/ 9/2010

Teachers: What we need to do to fix schools

By Valerie Strauss

This is the companion piece to the previous post, in which teachers expressed their frustrations about the attacks on their profession. This piece is about a new report by 14 teachers from high-needs urban schools around the country about how to effectively improve conditions in these schools.

Here’s a link to the report noted above:

Center for Teaching Quality

Transforming School Conditions

Building Bridges to the Education System that Students and Teachers Deserve

TeacherSolutions That Improve Student Achievement

http://www.teachingquality.org/sites/default/files/TS_TWC_Report.pdf

National Education Policy Center

New Report Finds For-Profit EMOs Falling Short of AYP Targets

Almost half of the public schools run by for-profit education management companies have not made adequate yearly progress (AYP) under the federal No Child Left Behind Law, according to the 12th annual Profiles of For-Profit Education Management Organizations: 2009-2010, by Alex Molnar of Arizona State University and Gary Miron and Jessica Urschel of Western Michigan University. The report found that large EMOs and so-called “virtual school” EMOs performed especially poorly.

http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/EMO-FP-09-10

Opinion: Pennsylvania Teachers’ Unions Are Losing Their Cool - And Their Power

Delco Times Wednesday, December 8, 2010

By Chris Freind, Times Guest Columnist

http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2010/12/08/opinion/doc4cffd95c19d99267732039.txt