It makes sense: if you're really good at your job, you should be able to earn a little bit more trust around the workplace. That's what appears to be going on inside D.C. Public Schools, which will slightly change its teacher evaluation system to give teachers who earn high ratings the ability to waive in-person evaluations. more ›

Big education news this afternoon: the District of Columbia has sent separation notices to 413 teachers this year, 309 of which will be terminated from their jobs at the city's public schools due to poor evaluation scores. more ›

Pamela Ransome, the principal of Johnson Middle School who was under internal investigation over allegations that she struck two students, has been let go from her job. more ›

The Post reports that the principal of Johnson Middle School, Pamela Ransome, is under internal investigation concerning allegations that she struck two students over the last two months. more ›

The District of Columbia's public school system now says that about 750 teachers and support staff have been "excessed" for the 2011-12 school year, though they are promising to help those teachers find other jobs within the District. more ›

With one month to go before Mayor Vincent Gray has to submit his budget for fiscal year 2012 to the D.C. Council, all indications are that the District's public schools will be taking a huge hit. The Examiner reports that, according to budgets scheduled to be released this week, severe budget cuts at the "school level" will lead to a layoff of teachers and staff. more ›

Last week, an arbitrator ruled that D.C. Public Schools must make a good faith effort to rehire and offer backpay to 75 teachers who were fired in 2008. And even though it is a "small subset" of the 1,000 or so educators that former DCPS chancellor Michelle Rhee fired during her tenure, phones at the Washington Teachers' Union have been ringing off the hook with calls from teachers curious if they can come back to work. The city could have to pay up to $7.5 million to bring back the teachers -- and it sounds like it might be on the hook for a large portion of that, depending, of course, on whether DCPS is able to successfully appeal the ruling. There remained one question that hadn't been answered, though: what exactly did these teachers do to get fired? more ›

A few weeks ago six Dunbar High School students were arrested for the sexual assault of a fellow student, and subsequently released with no explanation. This week, DCPS Interim Chancellor Kaya Henderson ousted Friends of Bedford, the private firm that had been running the school. Now, the Washington Post's D.C. School Insider blog published a saddening account of the neglect, lack of accountability, and pervasive bullying at the high school. more ›

D.C. Public Schools is facing a projected $30 million budget gap due to special education overruns, reports Bill Turque -- and you know what that kind of talk leads to: the threat of more teacher layoffs. "Using the budgeted average of $85,000 in salary and benefits per teacher, closing a $25 million gap would require a reduction of about 300 jobs," writes Turque. Additionally, Michelle Rhee said on Wednesday that she was ready "to take any actions necessary" in order to balance the budget. Rut-roh. Vince Gray is scheduled to meet with DCPS officials today to figure out exactly how much the school district is over budget, since both schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and District Chief Financial Officer Nat Gandhi don't exactly agree (nothing new there) on the amount of money that's been overspent. more ›

Remember that time when you were at the bar, forgot to look over your shoulder and proceeded to say something totally inappropriate about your girlfriend or buddy, only to discover that they sidled right in there right at the punchline, and ended up completely offended? Well, less than 24 hours before he is scheduled to meet with Michelle Rhee about the Chancellor's much-discussed future, WTOP's Mark Segraves reports that Vince Gray said the following in an interview regarding some of the 266 teachers that Rhee has fired so far during her tenure: "I'm open to them being able to be considered for a job. I don't know why anybody would say they shouldn't be considered when in fact they were let go supposedly for budgetary reasons." Well, then. Way to set a positive tone in advance of what may be the biggest meeting of your first year in office, Mr. Mayor! Even before this revelation, I figured that tomorrow's meeting between the two would be a contentious affair. But now, I think it'll be a lot like that exchange you had after making that overheard joke at the bar: angry, loud and ending with one of the two (figuratively) sleeping on the couch. more ›

Michelle Rhee spent about thirty minutes chatting with Bruce DePuyt this morning on the NewsChannel 8 anchor's NewsTalk program -- and understandably, she spent most of her time defending the IMPACT evaluation system, the results of which were responsible for the termination of hundreds of DCPS teachers last Friday. more ›

Earlier this morning, the Washington Teachers Union sent its members the results of a survey about IMPACT, the new employee evaluation system used by DCPS. The survey was sent out to DCPS teachers last spring, and was completed by 928 teachers. According to an email from the Washington Teachers' Union, the results are being released now because, "media interest in the survey results is much higher than earlier this year." That's probably true -- just hours ago, news broke that 241 teachers had been fired for "ineffective" performance under the new system. George Parker, president of the WTU, has announced that the union will appeal the firings. more ›

Yesterday we heard that DCPS was preparing to fire a "sizable" number of teachers for ineffectiveness, and this morning, the Post reports that "sizable" means 241 226. That's how many educators were let go earlier today, after receiving poor ratings under the new IMPACT teacher evaluation system. The system assesses teacher performance using several criteria, including growth in student test scores, contributions to school culture, and classroom management. IMPACT also provides financial bonuses to teachers who are ranked "highly effective." The evaluation system is part of the new teachers contract, which was overwhelmingly voted for by teachers earlier this summer. more ›

Some big news this afternoon from the Examiner's Leah Fabel: District of Columbia Public Schools is but "days away" from performing a purge of "ineffective" teachers and employees. more ›

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It is obvious that those of us who live and breathe as citizens of the District of Columbia are used to a measure of issues in government oversight -- for instance, today's news that an auditor's survey of five District government agencies uncovered nearly 700 unpaid fines totaling over $70,000 assessed to government vehicles. Nothing shocking, right? But here's a legitimate question for anyone to ask: just who in the hell is responsible for the out and out financial mess that D.C. Public Schools currently finds themselves in? Someone's got to take a fall for this one, right? more ›

Along with an epically frustrating commute home, it looks like Friday is being remembered by D.C. Public Schools teachers as a huge waste of time. more ›

What D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee might have thought were relatively innocuous comments to a friendly media outlet about fired teachers have turned into a political storm that threatens her already controversial tenure. more ›

As we mentioned in the Morning Roundup, the D.C. public schools announced yesterday that an unexpected $40 million budget shortfall will require spending cuts and personnel reductions by the end of October. In a letter to teachers, George Parker, president of the Washington Teachers' Union, expressed anger that the WTU was not notified of the cuts prior to yesterday's announcement, and suggested that the coming layoffs could jeopardize the ongoing contract negotiations. Contract talks were recently rumored to be nearing to a close after almost two years of stalemate. more ›

Bad news for D.C. charter school teachers: you may not be getting paid on Friday, according to a story just posted to the Post's website. D.C. missed a $103 million payment to its 60 public charter schools this morning, thanks to some kind of tax revenue shortfall or delay, Bill Turque reports. The District is facing at least a $190 million deficit in the current fiscal year, thanks to shrinking tax revenues due to the recession. The Post story says that charter board officials are negotiating with the city to make some kind of partial payment from contingency funds to help them meet immediate payroll needs. more ›

In a letter sent last week to DCPS teachers, D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee directly addressed ten of the most frequent concerns she hears from teachers, ranging from "Some people say that you want to fire all the veterans in DCPS and replace them with Teach For America teachers or DC Teaching Fellows. Is that true?" to "There are too many initiatives going on. I’m worn out and overwhelmed. What’s your priority?" more ›

Bill Turque turns in a thoughtful piece in today's Post, examining the loaded dynamics behind disciplining students who attack their teachers. It may sound obvious - kids shouldn't get away with physical violence, ever - but tension between instructors and administrators, overcrowded or poorly-managed classrooms, and the difficulty of confirming allegations, complicate the discipline process. There are no definite statistics about assaults against D.C. teachers, but Turque interviews instructors at Woodson Academy who complain of being struck by books or shoved by students, and who feel that DCPS and their administrators have done little to address bad behavior. more ›

Details about the District's new teacher evaluation system were discussed for the first time at a D.C. Council hearing yesterday, the Post's Bill Turque reports. The plan, which has been in development with teachers and experts over the past several months, combines classroom observations (the focus of the current system) with standardized test scores and value-added measures of student learning. Schoolwide performance goals could also be established and used as part of the evaluations. more ›

Money, money, money, money...mon-ey. more ›

Next up on Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s agenda to make D.C. Schools more accountable? Getting “highly qualified” teachers into the classrooms. Under the controversial law “No Child Left Behind,” all teachers must demonstrate that they are qualified to teach their subjects, usually by completing graduate coursework or passing certification tests like the Praxis series. more ›