Archive by Author | Kelsey

Twitter Feed Analysis: January 24-31

The Twitter discussion of #edreform, #edpolicy, and #edpolitics continued this week with similar themes of school choice, teacher evaluation, and student assessment, but was inspired mostly by President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday evening. Many seemed critical of the President’s assessment of U.S. education as well as of the proposals for reform suggested in his speech.

In particular, Diane Ravitch composed a response for Politico that was often linked to Tweets, in which she claims that if Obama truly believes “teachers matter” and need to stop teaching to the test, his Race to the Top initiative would not require states to meet testing goals. Even more frequently “retweeted” was Ravitch’s own speech entitled, “Whose Children Have Been Left Behind?” which can be found at the Washington Post. With such a strong presence and following on Twitter (she has 26,565 Tweets, 25,534 followers, and is frequently re-Tweeted), her views against strong assessment, accountability measures, and school choice seem to be most prominent.

In response to the online debates and analyses of the speech, the White House held Twitter “Office Hours” on education @WHLive on Friday at 12pm. Beginning at this time, Twitter users could ask the administration questions regarding education reform. Most questions were on the topic of higher education access and affordability for students in the U.S. On this same day, President Obama announced his plan for a new Race to the Top competition that would focus specifically on higher education, mentioned under #edpolitics. The Office Hour discussion turned again to No Child Left Behind and student assessment, specifically the ideas of waivers for states and new flexibility in complying with the original provisions of the law.

Ideas that stood out as unique during the Office Hours and the week’s Twitter feed in general included reforms for adult education as well as cyber education as an alternative choice for parents. In addition, several Tweets addressed reform of specifically urban schools, using the hashtag: #urbaned. However, none of these Tweets really sparked discussion or were re-Tweeted.

The primary topic of discussion continues to be methods of teacher evaluation and the role teachers should play in education reform. The opinions expressed via Twitter clearly demonstrate an idea we touched on in last week’s lecture: a divide exists in education reform between those who are in the classroom and those who attempt to influence reform from outside the classroom. Tweets from teachers are often defensive, and many users Tweeted criticism of the Gates Foundation Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project and “corporate” attempts at influencing reform. This rift between educators and policymakers on how to best evaluate teachers and include them in reform seemed to be the most common theme this week. Therefore, I suggest the class read a recent Center for American Progress study on different approaches to increasing teacher effectiveness.