March/April 2006
Talking ’bout Evolution
High school science teachers share
strategies for dealing with controversy in the classroom
by Nancy Walser
High school science teachers have long been
at center stage when it comes to the subject of evolution. In
1925, Tennessee biology teacher John Scopes was convicted of breaking
a state law against teaching that “man has descended from
a lower order of animal.” The pendulum swung the other way
in 1968, when Arkansas biology teacher Susan Epperson challenged
a state law outlawing the teaching of evolution and the U.S. Supreme
Court upheld her position.
In recent years, teachers across the country
have been back on the defensive as challenges to evolution mount.
The rest of this article can be found in the current
issue of the Harvard Education Letter. Buy
this issue.
Standards-Based
Evaluation for Teachers
How one public school system links teacher
performance, student outcomes, and professional growth
By Andreae Downs
Eric Luedtke recalls clearly his first evaluation as a student
teacher. The only comments from the instructors who observed him
were “Good job!” and “You did everything right.”
“But I knew I had a lot to learn and a lot I could improve
on,” said Luedtke, who now teaches middle school social
studies at the A. Mario Loiederman Middle School for the Creative
and Performing Arts in Silver Spring, Md.
As accountability pressures on schools increase, teacher evaluation
and supervision have come under new scrutiny.
The rest of this article can be found in the current
issue of the Harvard Education Letter. Buy
this issue.
Red
Light, Green Light
Wyoming’s
new accountability tests provide “traffic signals” to
help teachers improve instruction
by Ellen Forte and W. James Popham
Late last November, a small group of elementary school teachers
gathered in Laramie, Wyoming, to field test a unique approach
to reporting scores on Wyoming’s newly designed statewide
accountability tests. Their goal: to see if they could arrive
at a consistent process for making clear, practical, teacher-to-teacher
recommendations on ways to fine-tune instruction, based on student
scores.
The rest of this article can be found in the current
issue of the Harvard Education Letter. Buy
this issue.
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