Rachael Brown

The Master Educator job description is here. Five years of teaching at a low-income school, with demonstrated effectiveness at increasing student achievement, are required. MEs are an example of the ...

You and KittyLiteral are both right, thank you for pointing this out. We have clarified above. Since IMPACT predates the finalized contract, I do think it is fair to acknowledge that teachers and the ...

You're right—the percentage of students who receive subsidized lunches should have nothing to do with how good a school is academically. Yet the reality is that schools with high percentages of low-in...

That's a good point, but a subjective one. I'm a former DCPS teacher who has done DC-CAS benchmarking too. I agree that it can be seemingly arbitrary, but in the absence of course/grade exit exams t...

KittyLiteral - While it's true that not all agree on what should constitute "proficiency", on the DC-CAS, the "proficient" level is the measure used to determine "adequate yearly progress" under NCLB....

Scott, I agree that retention of gains into the upper grades is very important, and I wish a higher percentage of students were making progress at the secondary level. However, a better way to think...

That's a good point, thanks Ricky. It would be more accurate to say that of the students who entered 9th grade in 2002, more had dropped out by 1996 than ended up graduating. However, even considering...

Jakers - If you take a look at the Quick and the Ed post I linked to, Carey does lay out some of those specifics re: DCPS's position in relation to other districts, notably, that DCPS receives signi...

Tmoney, you're right, the meeting is the 23rd. Thank you for catching the error!...

Old Poster - good points re: factors influencing the achievement gap. However, on vouchers, my understanding is that the parents who were polled about vouchers were either people who had received the ...

Chelita - I think you nail it here. It's not useful to cast the discussion in terms of old vs. young or veteran vs. new - what really matters is identifying, hiring and retaining the effective teacher...

Dmlaenker - the "state" in this case would be the D.C. State Education Office, which is run by Deborah Gist. Oceanchild - Bell Multicultural High School and M.M. Washington are DCPS high schools tha...

Marc - Good point about the connotations of the quotations around "school advocates," and I apologize if they caused misunderstanding. I used the phrase not to quote Mathews, but to address the divers...

OldPoster: To clarify - the buyouts were designed as an "out" for teachers at the schools designated for closure and restructuring, consequently reducing the number of potentially excessed teachers, n...