Monday
March 30, 2009
Please enjoy posts from Golden Apple’s own Penny Lundquist for the next few weeks. Penny is a 1986 Golden Apple Fellow. She has been on the staff of Golden Apple for 17 years, and currently serves as Golden Apple’s Director of Professional Development. Prior to working at Golden Apple, she was an English teacher with 23 years of classroom experience in grades five through twelve. Her interests include literacy and teacher professionalism.
What follows is a highly personal list of what I perceive to be 5 key education trends . . . expressed as injunctions. I would love to have readers comment on my choices and list picks of their own. These are in no particular order, just things I’m picking up surfing the internet, reading Educational Leadership, Edutopia and other education publications, and following Obama’s/Duncan’s education priorities.
Without further ado, here are the first two trends:
1. It’s the teachers, stupid!
It’s turning out that the single most important common denominator in high student achievement gains by students in high needs schools, is the quality of the teaching. Children, who have accomplished teachers, and as many in a row as possible, simply do better. Now that this is a known fact, there is an impetus to identify more such individuals, give them the training and resources they need, get them into the schools of greatest need and reward them adequately for the important work they are doing and the results they are helping their students achieve. Golden Apple has developed a Commitment to Teaching Excellence to guide and inspire teachers in their profession, and we’ve posted it as this month’s Free Resource. Find it here.
For more on the importance of high-quality teachers, check out Ed Trust, which publishes excellent studies on this topic.
2. It’s the students, stupid!
This is, of course, the corollary of #1. Secretary of Education Duncan is famously known for putting the needs of students before any other consideration – as well it should be. “My job is to fight for children, to fight for kids,” Duncan said. “When you do that, tough decisions become pretty clear in your head very quickly.” In a recent editorial, he called for “rewarding good teachers and removing bad ones” Teachers who are not highly effective either need excellent, high quality, professional development, a deepening of their content knowledge and the will and commitment to improve, or they need to make way for those who will be effective with children. From Arne Duncan to Bill Gates, the message is clear. We must focus on what is best for students, how students learn best and from whom . . . so trend #2 is a greater emphasis on students . . . kids come first!
For more on Duncan and the Obama administration’s education policy, check out this article.
Stay tuned over the next few weeks, as I post three more interesting trends in the public discourse on education.
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Thursday
March 12, 2009
Golden Apple President and CEO Dom Belmonte shares his thoughts about President Obama’s education plan in a guest column in this month’s Catalyst:
Obama’s call to the nation’s youth to enter teaching is certainly laudable. The president’s remark that “the most important factor (to a student’s) success… (is) the person standing in front of the classroom” echoes the sentiments Golden Apple has proclaimed for decades, and we hail those that heed his call.
But the truest measure of educational improvement is not who enters the profession, but who stays and deepens their understanding of and commitment to teaching and inspiring children. A brief teaching stint to buttress one’s resume, before leaving for another field, does not improve a classroom, a school or a community.
Dom continues with a call for authentic assessment:
What was missing from Obama’s remarks, in our opinion, is the recognition that children need to be evaluated by more than their ability to achieve on timed, multiple-choice standardized tests. This mania has harmed our classrooms, dumbed-down curricula and virtually ignored problem-solving, critical thinking and creativity. These are attributes that will create the world-class education system we all desire for our children.
Golden Apple feels strongly that there needs to be a significant focus on finding ways to include those attributes in all levels of education, to raise our standards and give our children the best chance to succeed in the world.
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