The Public School Insights Blog
Our friends at the Teacher Leaders Network, which connects accomplished teacher leaders from across the country, hooked us up with two of their dazzling teacher/bloggers: Nancy Flanagan and Bill Ferriter, two award-winning teachers who have built national reputations as both thought leaders and practitioners.
What resulted was a pointed but always respectful debate on the promise and perils of teaching with technology. In guest postings today and tomorrow, Nancy and Bill will sketch out the contours of this debate.
Nancy Flanagan: Brave New Curriculum - or More of the Same? ...
Over the past week, Public School Insights has been interviewing the distinguished co-chairs of the high-profile task force behind a new campaign calling for a "Broader, Bolder Approach to Education." As we noted in an earlier post, the task force is advocating for a set of policies to reform schools while offsetting the social and economic disadvantages that contribute to academic achievement gaps.
I recently spoke with campaign co-chair Helen Ladd, a prominent professor of economics and public policy at Duke University. Like co-chairs Pedro Noguera and Tom Payzant, Ladd argues that schools alone cannot close achievement gaps--The nation needs aggressive school reform strategies as well as policies to minimize the impact of poverty on student performance. ...
Currently a professor of practice at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, Tom Payzant has been around the educational block. He has served as an Assistant Secretary of Education under President Clinton, and as superintendent of schools in Boston, San Diego, Oklahoma City, Eugene (Oregon), and Springfield (Pennsylvania). In Boston, he was credited with narrowing achievement gaps and presiding over the largest improvement in mathematics scores of any major urban district participating in the National Assessment of Education Progress Trial Urban District Assessment. He has received many leadership awards, including Massachusetts Superintendent of the Year, and published extensively, promoting academic reforms to both professional educators and policymakers. Recently, he also served as co-chair of the task force that released a statement promoting "A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education." ...
In the first installment of our interview with innovative teacher Luajean Bryan, Bryan described the hands-on projects that have driven up enrollments in her advanced math and science classes. In this second installment, she tells us about her strategies for overcoming the challenges teachers face when attempting do these types of projects, including how she corrals the resources she needs and her thoughts about the "time" dilemma.
Be sure to listen to our highlights from the interview (5 minutes):
Or check out our transcript: ...
Luajean Bryan is a star.
Just ask her principal at Walker Valley High School in Tennessee, the students who flock to her advanced math and science classes, or the people at USA Today who named her to their 2006 all-star teaching team.
Bryan recently spoke with us about the innovative teaching practices that have won her local admiration and national attention. Her emphasis on hands-on learning is exciting students and swelling enrollments in higher-level science and math classes. With support from the NEA Foundation, for example, she accompanies students into caves and on untethered hot-air balloon trips to help them learn first-hand about mathematic and scientific principles that govern the world around them. ...
Pedro Noguera is a professor at NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, a leading authority on school reform, and a co-chair of the task force that recently released a statement promoting "A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education." As I wrote in an earlier post, the statement calls for policies to reduce the educational, economic and social disadvantages that depress the academic achievement of our most vulnerable students.
Noguera recently took some time to tell me about the content and goals of the task force's work, and to address criticisms of the statement that have been circulating through some education policy blogs: namely, that the task force is letting schools off the hook and shying away from hard-hitting education reforms. ...
A new report from the venerable National Research Council has found that teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards are more likely than their peers to boost their students' achievement and to remain in teaching.
You can read more about the report and the National Board here. ...
At long last, Public School Insights is providing written transcripts of our exclusive audio interviews with educators, thought leaders and celebrities.
So, put on your reading glasses and have another look at some of the most engaging interviews we've done over the past couple of months: ...
Stories about what's working in public schools and districts keep rolling in to Public School Insights. Here's a list of five inspiring new stories we've posted in the past two weeks:
- Great Neck Public Schools, New York: Bending Bureaucracy to Meet Kids Needs, June 10
- George Middle School, Oregon: Promoting Academic Success through Community Partnerships, June 6
- Cameron Elementary School, California: Using Incentives to Motivate Students, June 2
- Interlake High School, Washington: Helping All Students Reach their Highest Potential in Math, May 30
- Clarke County School District, Georgia: Bringing Dropouts Back to School, May 28
A diverse coalition of more than 60 experts in education, health, civil rights, economics and other fields just released a joint statement calling for "a broader, bolder approach to education" that includes policies to reduce the economic and social disadvantages that exacerbate academic achievement gaps. While continuing to urge school improvement efforts, their approach promotes early childhood education, after-school and summer opportunities, physical health, character, social development, creativity, and effective citizenship.
According to the coalition's ads in the New York Times and Washington Post, "Some schools have demonstrated unusual effectiveness. But even they cannot, by themselves, close the entire gap between students from different backgrounds in a substantial, consistent and sustainable manner on the full range of academic and non-academic measures by which we judge student success." ...
SIGN UP
Visionaries
Click here to browse dozens of Public School Insights interviews with extraordinary education advocates, including:
- 2013 Digital Principal Ryan Imbriale
- Best Selling Author Dan Ariely
- Family Engagement Expert Dr. Maria C. Paredes
The views expressed in this website's interviews do not necessarily represent those of the Learning First Alliance or its members.
New Stories
Featured Story
Excellence is the Standard
At Pierce County High School in rural southeast Georgia, the graduation rate has gone up 31% in seven years. Teachers describe their collaboration as the unifying factor that drives the school’s improvement. Learn more...
School/District Characteristics
Hot Topics
Blog Roll
Members' Blogs
- Transforming Learning
- The EDifier
- School Board News Today
- Legal Clips
- Learning Forward’s PD Watch
- NAESP's Principals' Office
- NASSP's Principal's Policy Blog
- The Principal Difference
- ASCA Scene
- PDK Blog
- Always Something
- NSPRA: Social School Public Relations
- AACTE's President's Perspective
- AASA's The Leading Edge
- AASA Connects (formerly AASA's School Street)
- NEA Today
- Angles on Education
- Lily's Blackboard
- PTA's One Voice
- ISTE Connects
What Else We're Reading
- Advancing the Teaching Profession
- Edwize
- The Answer Sheet
- Edutopia's Blogs
- Politics K-12
- U.S. Department of Education Blog
- John Wilson Unleashed
- The Core Knowledge Blog
- This Week in Education
- Inside School Research
- Teacher Leadership Today
- On the Shoulders of Giants
- Teacher in a Strange Land
- Teach Moore
- The Tempered Radical
- The Educated Reporter
- Taking Note
- Character Education Partnership Blog
- Why I Teach
