teachers

The Teacher of the Future

Eduflack Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

The teacher of the future? That future might be now. It is an important discussion that policymakers and practitioners should be having. What are our expectations for teachers in the future? What should incoming educators know and be able to do? And what do we do when our expectations don’t match the realities in the classroom?

Earlier this month, KCUR public radio in Kansas City, MO dedicated an hour to the topic, offering up a wide range of perspectives. The segment included Arthur Levine, President of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation; Cristin Blunt, teacher at an alternative school in Shawnee Mission; Colleen Power, homeschool mom and teacher; Matthew Oates, involved with Friends of Hale Cook and candidate for Kansas City Public Schools board; Sylvia Maria Gross, Senior Producer of KCUR’s Central Standard and former teacher; Tony Kline, Superintendent, University Academy; and Kyle Palmer, KCUR reporter.

You can hear the full story here on the KCUR site. It’s definitely worth the listen.

Blowing Up Schools of Ed?

Eduflack higher ed, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

Over at Education Post, I have a piece that talks about our need to transform education schools across the country. With everything we are putting on teachers today, and all we expect from them in the classroom and beyond, we just can’t expect that teacher preparation today would still look like it did 50 years ago. Yet at far too many colleges and universities, it just does. As I wrote:

We have been asking more and more from our teachers. A decade ago, the remark was delivered expecting teachers to be researchers and psychometricians. In the years since, we have looked to those same beginning teachers to also be social workers, assessment administrators, referees, moral compasses, and the ultimate criteria for whether school districts, schools and students were succeeding.

In the piece, I spotlight the work I am currently engaged in at the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, as we embark an on exciting new effort, in collaboration with MIT, to build the ed school of the future, one that is competency based and focused on outcomes. As I note, “We need a new teacher-education model focused on outcomes and one that requires recognition that learning, time and process are variables and that one size definitely does not fit all.”

You can check out the full piece here. And while you are at it, check out some of the other content at Education Post. The new platform is doing a great job spotlighting reforms and improvements across the country.

Happy reading!

#CommonCore, Through Teacher and Legislator Eyes

Eduflack BAM, CCSS, teachers

In the trenches of the Common Core State Standards battle, it is common to hear educators lament that legislators and policymakers just don’t understand what it is like to be a teacher or to know what is being asked of teachers when it comes to implementing Common Core.

On the flip side, many legislators have grown tired of teachers constantly saying that if you have never taught in a classroom, you have no business developing or even talking about laws and policies in the field of P-12 education.

Such realities set up instant showdowns, and, more often than not, have the educator and policy communities talking past each other, when they should be working together on important issues such as what we expect each and every student to actually learn.

That’s why Eduflack is so excited to announce that BAM! Radio Network has brought back Common Core Radio, the show I’ve been hosting since 2013. Now, I am joined by Cheryl Williams, the executive director of the Learning First Alliance, as we talk about what educators, parents, policymakers, and all those in between are doing to help successfully implement Common Core in their classrooms, schools, communities, districts, and states.

To kick us off, this week we have Eric Luedtke. Luedtke brings a fairly unique perspective to this discussion. First and foremost, he is a middle school social studies teacher in Montgomery County (MD) Public Schools. As an added bonus, he is also an elected member of the Maryland House of Delegates.

Imagine that, a teacher/legislator. In this episode, Williams and I talk to Luedtke about his experiences balancing both roles, and how he helps legislators understand the teacher perspective on Common Core, and how he helps reassure educators that their legislators are indeed listening to the classroom when it comes to standards and student expectations.

The episode, Debunking the Myths on the Path to Successful Common Core Implementation, can be found on the BAM! website or can be downloaded from iTunes. And for those who are always asking, there have been more than a million downloads of BAM! programming since the network was launched.

Happy listening! I promise you won’t be disappointed in Common Core Radio.

Good Teaching Trumps All

Eduflack Achievement gap, Teacher Education, teachers, turnaround, Woodrow Wilson

It is impossible to seriously improve student achievement without focusing on how we prepare teachers for the classroom. Over at the American Youth Policy a Forum blog, I recently talked to AYPF about the new for effective teacher prep and the impact it can have on student achievement, particularly in high-need schools. 

“If you have a good teacher in charge of a classroom to do what is necessary to educate the kids, the kids learn. There’s no getting around that,” said Riccards. “As policies change, as instructional approaches change, we know that good teaching trumps all.”

Give it a read. You won’t be disappointed. 

Maybe We All Just Need a Hug

Eduflack accountability, Parents, Students, teachers

My mother taught at the same high school that I graduated from, in Shenandoah Junction, WV. I was fortunate never to have her as my English teacher (my youngest sister was far less fortunate). As a teacher, my mom was tough. She was a “no excuses” teacher before such a label existed in education reform (though for the record, my mom would never call herself an ed reformer EVER). She held all of her students to high standards, and she expected the best they could bring.

It was true in how she taught American literature, and it was true in the behaviors she expected in her classroom and in the hallways. On more than one occasion, she jumped in the middle of a fight to break it up. On more than one occasion, I saw her, all five-feet-nothing of her, get into the face of a football player or other student who towered over her, demanding said student respect the school and respect the rules.

When she got into the scrum on a fight between a couple of guys, they pically stopped as soon as they saw her in the mix. But at least once, when she tried to break up two fightin’ girls, they weren’t so quick to get to their respective corners. But it never stopped Mrs. Riccards from seeking the discipline her schools demanded. And she taught in all types, urban, rural, and suburban.

So when I read Eva Moskowitz’ piece this week in the Wall Street Journal on changes to the NYC schools’ discipline policies, I was at first amused, and then a little troubled. In it, she writes of the introduction of “restorative circles” as a key component to discipline in our nation’s largest public school system.

And what are “restorative circles?” As Moskowitz writes: “It’s a ‘community process for supporting those in conflict [that] brings together the three parties to a conflict—those who have acted, those directly impacted and the wider community—within an intentional systemic context, to dialogue as equals.'”

Is this really where we have gone, where school discipline has devolved into a group hug, where the person throwing the punch and the person getting hit are considered equals and equally wronged in the process? Where a bully and the bullied need to come together with the larger community to understand why one feels the need to terrorize or attack a fellow student? Where we need to explore, understand, and feel empathetic toward the aggressor?

Shaking my old man fist, in my day, there was no need for restorative circles or kumbaya moments in the disciplinary process. You start a fight or throw a punch, there are consequences. You get caught cheating or skipping school, you get disciplined. There was no “systemic context” to understand. Break the rules, get punished. No excuses, no exceptions.

Should we really be endorsing bad behavior as long as one has a good reason for it? If so, we are telling our kids that our discipline policy is no discipline at all. Forget accountability, all we need a good hug.

“Broad”-ening Ed Leadership Opportunities

Eduflack higher ed, reform, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

As Eduflack has written previously, some research shows that a good school principal can account for 25 percent of a school’s total impact on student achievement. In the education space, we talk a great deal about the importance of having top-notch principals and superintendents and central office personnel in place, but we do so with the same, sometimes lame ed leadership programs serving as their training grounds.

We know that many of these ed leadership graduate degree programs aren’t of the highest quality. We know that many enroll in them just to move up the salary scale and get a bump in pay. And we know that few of these programs are providing aspiring leaders with the skills, knowledge, and support they need to be both the managers and instructional leaders we seek and that so many of our kids need.

It’s one of the reasons I get so excited about the work I’m involved with at the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, where we are now working in three states, and with many more universities, to provide aspiring school and district leaders with a high-impact MBA program for education leaders. I know our model works because I witness the impact. I can see how an MBA path steeped in a strong academic program, an equally robust clinical experience, and multi-year mentoring can transform a great teacher into a tremendous ed leader.

And I get equally excited when I see announcements like I did this week from the Broad Center for the Management of School Systems. For those following from home, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges’ Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities granted Initial Accreditation to the Broad Center.

This is an important announcement because it demonstrates there is more than one path toward being an effective school leader. Through its Broad Residency in Urban Education, the Broad Center provides a two-year management development program for career-switchers looking to move into top levels of K-12 urban public education systems. They come out of the Broad program with a master’s of education in educational leadership, and now, thanks to WASC, they graduate with an accredited degree, ready to take on the world and help run an urban school system.

Yes, some of the haters will continue to crow about Broad and ask how this could happen. But let’s remember, WASC isn’t a “reform organization.” It is the quasi-governmental body that oversees higher education institution in California, Hawaii, Guam, and the Pacific Basin. It is the West Coast equivalent of NEASC, which oversees the likes of Harvard and MIT. in the Northeast. It is a long-standing, established institution embedded into the very fabric of American higher education.

In granting the Broad Center this important approval, the WASC Educational Effectiveness Review Team, according to Broad, commended The Broad Residency for “a very rich data-driven program of unusual depth,” “reflecting a pervasive spirit of inquiry and a commitment to continuous improvement” and for being “painstaking and comprehensive in its assessment of its programs, residents’ learning and satisfaction during the residency period, and through the residents’ career preparation.”

I get that accreditation decisions rarely grab the headlines and public attention. But let’s not overlook the significance of Broad joining the WASC accreditation club. It is a strong acknowledgement that there are different ways to effectively prepare school leaders, and it is an even stronger nod to the need for new, innovative approaches to educational leadership preparation.

No, this isn’t your grandpa’s ed leader prep program, and that’s a good thing. As our needs continue to change, as our demands continue to grow, and as our hunger for accountability and quality continues to expand, we need better prep mousetraps that truly develop a cadre of diverse, effective ed leaders. This is another step toward that.

STEM Priorities, STEM Teacher Ed Investments

Eduflack STEM, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson, Workforce

Earlier this week, President Obama celebrated the White House Science Fair. As part of an event celebrating all things science, he recognized recent investments in his administration’s STEM initiative, talking about jobs and the impact on the economy.

In its coverage, Tech News World went a little deeper than most, exploring recent STEM progress and where it is headed. In his story, Jack Germain endulged Eduflack, as I pushed a topic near and dear — STEM teacher education.

There is no question that STEM is important to our economic and societal success. But STEM success doesn’t come without a real investment in STEM education. And high-quality STEM education only comes when we have truly excellent STEM teachers leading our classrooms, particularly those classes in high-need schools.

As Germain wrote:

 The United States has experienced a shift from a national analog industrial economy to a global digital information economy.

U.S. social institutions — including education, finance, government, media and health — were created for the former, observed Patrick R. Riccards, director of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. That’s a problem, because Americans live in the latter, in a society that demands we transition from the models of the past to those needed today.

“This is particularly true in education,” he told TechNewsWorld.

“As a sector, we have been reluctant to embrace change, whether in the form of research findings, shifting demographics, technological advances, or similar triggers that demand change in other fields. Even as our methods of old work less and less well than they did previously, we have too often resisted the necessary transitions,” Riccards explained.

“Slowly, though, we are seeing a transformation in public education. This has been particularly true in the ways we prepare children with the science, technology, engineering, and math skills they will need to be college and career ready,” he pointed out.

If we truly see STEM as our future, the focus must be on developing a generation of excellent STEM educators for our schools — particularly our high-need schools, Riccards urged.

All the love in the world for STEM is meaningless, he said, if schools are staffed by ineffective teachers who are not truly versed in the STEM disciplines.

Couldn’t have said it better. The full article is definitely worth a read.

Celebrate Music … But Do It Right

Eduflack arts, Media, teachers

Readers of this blog know that Eduflack is a strong advocate of arts education. I myself was an (award-winning) drama kid in high school. And while I have no musical ability whatsoever–despite years of piano lessons and attempts to learn other instruments–I passionately believe in the role of the arts in our schools. 

So I was saddened when I saw a promotional photo from the Texas Classroom Teachers Association this week, promoting Music In Our Schools Month. No doubt, we should be celebrating music in our schools. But let’s do it right, in a way that honors the art. 

A quick look at the photo below, and you’ll see a few things.  A sax player with no mouthpiece, no reed, and hands in no place that would actually help her play the instrument. We could go on. 

My sister is a professional musician, a jazz singer in Chicago. She is a poster child for the arts in school and all it can do for a learner. When I shared the photo with her, all she could do was tell me that it has been making the rounds in the music circles, as a punchline, I assume. 

Judge for yourself. Does this help or hurt the cause of arts and music education? 

  

And a big HT to Matthew Tabor for putting this on my radar. 

Building a New Principal Prep Moustrap

Eduflack higher ed, Teacher Education, teachers

Sadly, current school leader preparation programs — those that typically offer an M.Ed. to successful principal candidates — are generally poor. Admissions and graduation standards are often the lowest among programs offered by education schools, a reality detailed in my own research for the Education Schools Project. Coursework is largely unrelated to the positions prospective school leaders are preparing for, and the clinical portions of the program are often weak. These programs are thought of as the easiest route to a master’s degree, the quickest path to the salary bump they bring.

Both higher education and K-12 have known for far too long that the vast majority of school leadership preparation programs are inadequate. Yet they’ve done little about it because demand for such programs remains high.

Woodrow Wilson Foundation President Arthur Levine in Real Clear Education School Principals Should Be Trained Like MBAs