teacher quality Archives | Washington Monthly

Education, K-12

Does Every Teacher Need a Coach?

by Jill Barshay March 8, 2018January 9, 2022

A new analysis of 60 studies on teacher coaching finds that benefits dissipate as coaching programs attempt to reach more teachers

Education, K-12

New Paper on the Need for Specialized Teacher Licenses in the Early Grades

by Laura Bornfreund June 28, 2017January 9, 2022

Education, K-12

The edTPA: What We Do and Don’t Know

by Anna Duncan and Kaylan Connally June 28, 2016January 9, 2022

Slate Takes On Race and Education

by Alexander Russo June 8, 2016January 9, 2022

Education, K-12

The Half-Finished Revolution on Teacher Quality

by washmonthly May 2, 2016January 9, 2022

Books, Education, July/August 2013, K-12, Magazine

A for Effort

by Thomas Toch and Taylor White July 3, 2013January 9, 2022

arrived in Washington and at the Post, things must look suddenly different. The Post chapter of the Newspaper Guild has said repeatedly that its members need raises just to keep pace with inflation. In a newsletter sent out late last year, the guild's chairman offered these insights into the plight of the poor W ashington Post reporter: "He brings lunch to work at least three times a week. To make ends meet at home, his family uses margarine instead of butter, milk instead of cream, cloth instead of paper napkins. The family, for whom he is the sole support, has abandoned Safeway for a buying co-op where food is cheaper. His five children are clothed, in part, in hand-me-downs from neighbors. There is no money for savings, little for home repairs. There is no additional life insurance beyond what the Post provides. "He is a journeyman reporter with 18 years in the business. His salary: $650 a week, $33,800 a year." What? He can't make it on $650 a week? On the face of it, this seems absurd, inflation or no inflation. But read on and the reason becomes clear: "Four of the kids are in private school, because the D.C. public schools proved woefully inadequate. The tuition eats up more than $5,000 a year. Next year, one child alone will cost as much to send to college." So we have come full circle. The teacher has demanded and gotten automatic cost-of-living raises and total job protection. Partly as a result, the public schools are lousy. The reporter, understandably, wants his kids in private school. To keep up with that expense, he wants cost-of-living raises and total job protection. Once he gets that, he's likely to look with sympathy on the teacher's attempt to hold on to the same deal. So the teacher's demands will be widely accepted, and he'll keep his raises and his tenure, and the schools will stay lousy. On and on it goes, and nobody in the bureaucratic class really loses. The losers are the kids in public schools.

Magazine, May 1979

Saving Our Schools From the Teachers’ Unions

by Joe Nocera May 1, 1979January 9, 2022