Monthly Archives: January 2013

Open Letters FROM Reformers I Know. Part 2: Wendy Kopp

Posted on January 23, 2013 by garyrubinstein

Links to the rest of this series here Though she was the last one to receive an open letter from me, Wendy Kopp is the second person to respond.  I’ll probably make some comments about the letter in the ‘comments’ … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Letters Series | 45 Comments

When I was younger, so much younger than today

Posted on January 21, 2013 by garyrubinstein

I came across, recently, as I’ve been scanning in some of the ‘clutter’ I’ve had in boxes in storage, the the cover letter and the two essays I wrote for my TFA application.  The deadline for applying to become a … Continue reading →

Posted in Teach For America | 3 Comments

$50 million. 3 years. No clue.

Posted on January 13, 2013 by garyrubinstein

In my last post, I showed how in the final report from the Gates Foundation MET project they produced a very misleading graph.  Though the implication of this graph — namely, that value-added measures are consistent from one year to … Continue reading →

Posted in Research | 19 Comments

The 50 million dollar lie

Posted on January 9, 2013 by garyrubinstein

Last year I spent a lot of time making scatter plots of the released New York City teacher data reports to demonstrate how unreliable value-added measurements are.  Over a series of six posts which you can read here I showed … Continue reading →

Posted in Research | 30 Comments

I Love The Smell Of Test Prep In The Morning

Posted on January 5, 2013 by garyrubinstein

Teach For America recently launched a new initiative to recruit military veterans to become TFA teachers.  With the catchy slogan “You Served For America Now Teach For America,” this campaign has gotten attention in various news sources like The Huffington … Continue reading →

Posted in Teach For America | 8 Comments

KIPP Teacher Loses Mind. Publicly Denounces ‘No Excuses’ Philosophy.

Posted on January 5, 2013 by garyrubinstein

Poor guy. Maybe because he was feeling like an inadequate new teacher, maybe because he didn’t “get the memo,” maybe because there wasn’t an all-night confessional open.  Whatever the reason, a KIPP teacher has snapped and ‘gone rogue’ publicly denouncing … Continue reading →

Posted in Teach For America | 18 Comments