Two More On Teachers

In Ed Week J.W. Towne pleads for better teaching to help stem the dropout problem.    In the WaPo Bill Turque checks-in on where the teachers’ contract talks stand (or apparently more precisely lay).    It’s a good overview of where things are but since these contract talks are now a multi-year affair can one contemporary event (in this case the recent layoffs) really be the cause of the slowdown?  Seems more likely that it’s the latest excuse for a slowdown rather than a stand-alone cause because things were hardly chugging along prior to the layoff.