The Daily Churn: Thursday

Updated 2 p.m. – Six Colorado schools have been named “Blue Ribbon Schools” by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Five are public schools – Dennison Elementary in Lakewood, Douglass Elementary in Boulder, Pine Grove Elementary in Parker, Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary in Colorado Springs and Orchard Avenue Elementary in Grand Junction. The sixth school is private – Colorado Springs Christian Middle School.

The national award honors public and private schools that are beating the odds, meaning they’re high-achieving or they’ve got a significant low-income population and they’re making strong growth. For more, read the Colorado Department of Education press release.

What’s churning:

The heated national debate on using student test-score growth to evaluate teachers shows little sign of abating, almost a month after the Los Angeles Times ignited a controversy by doing its own “value-added” analysis of teacher effectiveness.

Bloggers have gone back and forth on the issue on Education News Colorado’s opinion and commentary section for the past several week.

Now, the New York Times‘ website has dedicated its “Room for Debate” section to this issue. It makes for some fascinating reading.

Good reads from elsewhere: