Virginia Governor Mark Warner wants to try to entice more high quality teachers into the state’s most challenging schools.
Senator Kerry will make a major policy announcement on the same subject later today as well as unveil other aspects of a new teacher quality agenda. Eduwonk has taken a look, among other proposals there is good stuff on differential pay, holding schools of education accountable, more mentoring for new teachers, quicker dismissal for low-performing teachers, and better tests for new teachers. Again, Kerry has decided to focus on issues that are (a) politically smart because they avoid the spending versus accountability phony war (b) good strategies to make No Child Left Behind work better and (c) real problems! Good choice!
The AP reports on the rise in online diploma mills that some teachers have used to garner pay increases or try to meet the teacher quality requirements of No Child Left Behind (which makes the outrageous demand that teachers have demonstrated knowledge of the subject they teach). No doubt this too will somehow get blamed on No Child!
Update: Here are Kerry’s teacher quality proposals.
Great quality proposals, since there are really big differences in the quality of online schools. However, I think that often online schools are likely to be described as “online diploma mills” even without looking at accreditation, teacher degrees etc. The reputation of decent online schools has suffered from those mills and to my point of view, only these “mills” need to be determined through a whole new set of quality standards and given the chance to either adapt to the standards or need to give up their business.