A new report by LFA and Grunwald Associates, with support from AT&T, examines how parents perceive the value of mobile devices, how they see their children using mobiles, and what they think of the possibilities for mobile learning.
Blog Posts By Cheryl S. Williams
Today the largest teachers’ union in the US, the National Education Association (NEA), announced an action plan to strengthen the teaching profession and invest in the development of teacher leaders whose advocacy for and support of effective classroom practitioners will result in improved student learning and stronger public schools. The recommendations made today are based on the work of an independent Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching made up of accomplished teachers and educational leaders that looked at best practices from effective teachers across the country. These recommendations will result in an increase in the quality of teacher candidates before they reach the classroom; ensure that teachers remain at the top of their game throughout their careers; and improve student achievement by improving the profession.
The NEA Action Agenda has three major components:
- Raising the Bar for Entry—advocating to strengthen and maintain strong and uniform standards for preparation and admission to teacher preparation programs
- Every teacher candidate should have one full year of residency under
Recently I was looking through old paper files in the Learning First Alliance (LFA) office and happened upon a successful grant application that LFA had received some years ago to gather, record, and disseminate the knowledge, skills, and approaches successful school districts use to ensure their students achieve to their highest abilities. The project resulted in a publication called Beyond Islands of Excellence that, indeed did chronicle what goes into an effective public school system and profiled districts whose students had benefited from their wise, effective leadership. I was struck by how much the scope of work described in the successful grant application articulated the concepts and big ideas that LFA organizations and their leaders still work diligently to implement today. ...
Last week I had the interesting and mostly pleasant experience of attending two events showcasing issues in public preK-12 education on the same day: one sponsored by the Institute for a Competitive Workforce (ICW), the education arm of the United States Chamber of Commerce, and the second hosted by the National Association for Elementary School Principals (NAESP) honoring America’s National Distinguished Principals. As one would expect, the two organizations have very different perspectives on the status of public schools and the people who work in them.
With the exception of Steve Brill’s closing luncheon speech, the ICW meeting was generally balanced and featured interesting panel discussions around the event’s theme, “Race to the Top: Are We There Yet?” (Never mind that we’re barely a year into the competitive, federally funded, state administered large scale initiative. It’s lucky the first checks are in the mail much less that we’re “there”, wherever that might be.) A couple of the panelists, Dan Cruce from the Delaware Department of Education and Pat Forgione from ETS in particular, provided reality based presentations on state department collaborations that work towards effective change management. ...
If the mainstream press reporting on public schools wasn’t important, I wouldn’t be writing this blog post. But, the fact is that the general public gets its information about public education (and private education) from the mainstream press both in print and online, so how our work is depicted is key to the support we get from the public we serve. Last week, Jay Matthews, the education reporter/columnist for my home town newspaper, The Washington Post, not only misrepresented how successful school districts operate, he also got his facts wrong. ...
While it continues to be my firm belief that the changes and improvement we’re all working towards in public education will take a collaborative effort of parents, educators, community members, policymakers and students themselves, I was reminded last week that collaborative efforts never get off the ground without inspired leadership when the NASSP announced the 2012 National High School Principal and 2012 National Middle School Principal of the Year. Both Michael Foran, Principal of New Britain High School in New Britain, CT, and Linda Archambault, Principal of R.O. Gibson Middle School in Las Vegas, NV, the 2012 winners, assumed leadership of two troubled schools five years ago and both have succeeded in changing the culture of the school in ways that have resulted in improved working conditions for the professionals and impressive achievement gains for the students they serve.
Michael Foran began his leadership of the largest high school in the state of Connecticut by making swift and necessary changes to improve the urban school’s climate. He established a working environment based on collaboration and open communication, teacher engagement and stakeholder involvement. With a high minority population, Foran wanted to ...
Sunday’s New York Times Magazine (September 18, 2011), featured a cover story entitled “The Character Test”, suggesting that our kids’ success, and happiness, may depend less on perfect performance than on learning how to deal with failure. The two schools profiled were Riverdale, one of New York City’s most prestigious private schools, and KIPP Infinity Middle School, a member of the KIPP network of public charter schools in New York City. The common factor in each of these schools is a headmaster or charter school superintendent whose leadership is focused on providing an educational experience for the students he serves that encompasses more than academic rigor and achievement. Their strategies are based on the work of Martin Seligman, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, whose scholarly publication, Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification, documents 24 character strengths common to all cultures and eras. The importance of these strengths does not come from their relationship to any system of ethics or moral laws but from their practical benefit: cultivating these strengths represent a reliable path to “the good life,” a life that is not just happy but also meaningful and fulfilling. ...
As the only person working in the LFA office who was alive for both the assassination of President John F. Kennedy AND the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC, I was assigned the reflective activity in remembrance of that challenging time ten years ago when our sense of safety and security was seriously damaged. Like all natives of Washington, DC, I was struck by the contrast between the sheer physical beauty of the day… blue skies, low humidity, gentle sunlight, soft breeze, one of those days that remind you how good it feels to be alive… and the horror of attacks on New York City and Washington, DC, using commercial airplanes as human filled bombs. As adults we know, but fail to remember on a daily basis, that evil does exist in the world, and as educators who work with young people, we struggle to balance how we talk about that evil in our work with students.
What I initially felt that day was fear, and like many others I know, I worked hard to work through that fear and regain a sense of security and safety. One of the things we as educators don’t want to impart to the students we work with is fearfulness, because fear of ...
Last week I was lucky enough to attend the “Big Ideas Retreat” hosted by the Knowledge Alliance at the Aspen Institute conference center in Wye, Maryland. The theme for this year’s retreat was Opportunities in the New Normal – Leveraging Knowledge to Move Forward. In addition to their members, Jim Kohlmoss and his staff at the Knowledge Alliance assembled an exciting group of education thought-leaders, researchers, and practitioners. In addition to the opportunity to interact with such an interesting and knowledgeable group of professionals, the program also showcased successful educators sharing their experience providing rich educational environments in a time of shrinking resources. A sampling of what I heard that particularly resonated. ...
For some time I’ve been pondering how those of us who work to strengthen public K-12 education could spend less energy attacking each other (i.e. the “reformers” vs the “establishment”) and more time on problem-solving in a way that would help us serve all students regardless of economic/social/family situation to find success in a complex world. Of course one thing that would be helpful is if we could collectively acknowledge that a student’s out-of-school situation DOES have a profound impact on school performance—not to use that acknowledgement as an excuse, but rather to factor it into the efforts we design to ensure school success. ...
Last week I was lucky enough to participate in a gathering called America’s Imagination Summit convened by the Lincoln Center Institute (the education arm of the Performing Arts Center), and held at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The Summit was the culmination of a series of Imagination Conversations that had been conducted around the country to bring local leaders together to consider the role that imagination and creativity can and should play in improving the education experience for all our children in a variety of settings. With a few notable exceptions, the Summit avoided the now popular activity of bashing public schools and the professionals who work in them. Instead it concentrated on the role that imagination, i.e.” the capacity to see what is not,” plays in problem solving and how that approach can support our working together to ensure that a rich educational experience is offered to all our students, regardless of their social or economic station in life.
What follows are a few of the inspirational and thought-provoking moments from the speakers and panels: ...
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A VISION FOR GREAT SCHOOLS
On this website, educators, parents and policymakers from coast to coast are sharing what's already working in public schools--and sparking a national conversation about how to make it work for children in every school. Join the conversation!
