"Now more than ever, high quality education for all is a public good that is essential for the good of the public." Linda Darling- Hammond
I love this quote because it sums up the need for educational reform. Every child that falls through a crack will cost tax payers money. The cost of reform is nothing compared to the cost of dropouts, prison and fad reforms. Our future depends on the quality of education we provide our children. I am happy to see that some of these reforms that Linda Darling-Hammond wrote about in 2010 have already taken root. Not that this reform process is complete, or easy and it is still quite controversial. But change is happening. Hopefully we can continue to look at her work as a guide to reform process. 1.Meaningful learning goals- move a way from knowing facts and move towards 21st century skills. Darling-Hammond believes in a some National standards, but curriculum should remain at a state level. Assessments should school based with a heavy focus on performance tasks, testing what students can do, not what facts they can recite. 2. Intelligent, reciprocal accountability systems- Schools, teachers, administation, districts and state need to have an accountability system that goes beyond providing data from a standardized test. Systems for encouraging and monitoring good teaching needs to be in place. If students are asked to achieve higher standards, teachers, schools and districts need to model those higher standards. Reflection and a stance of continued improvement needs to be adopted by the school system. 3. Equitable and adequate resources-Allocate more funds to schools with at-risk populations. Funding on all levels needs to be based on need. Provide incentives to attract high quality teachers to struggling schools. Require testing data to also include quality of teachers and opportunity indicators to level the playing field when looking at data. Ensure that students have the opportunity to learn using equitable resources. For example: if the standard states that students need to research using multiple sources and technologies. Students need to have the opportunity to use those sources and technologies. 4. Strong professional standards and practice- Create a system that encourages quality teaching and continued growth and learning. Darling-Hammond thinks that this can be accomplished in 3 steps. First, teachers need to be encourages to continually refine their practice. Service scholarships should be offered to help teachers continually improve. Incentive should be offered to attract expert teachers to high-need school. Mentoring should be provided for all new or struggling teachers. Next, the teacher preparation and professional development needs to meet 21st century standards. Teacher preparation needs to be performance based, assessing the actual teaching. Teaching candidates needs to spend more time in classrooms practicing with expert teachers. Lastly, expert teachers need to be rewarded and encouraged into school leadership. An infrastructure of expert teachers working to improve the school as a whole. Schools need to build capacity in expert teachers to help guide novice teacher, create collaborative learning opportunities, lead PLC's and lead learning walks. Having expert teachers have a voice in school decisions and sharing leadership roles strengthens the school as a whole. 5. Schools organized for student and teacher learning- School leaders need to be able to redesign a school to meet the need of the students. Schools do not have to look the same. Project Based Learning, International Baccalaureate or STEM schools, each school should be able to use a research based method to reorganized the way students learn to fit the needs of the community it serves. Reflections: I am happy to see a lot of these reforms taking place. Some more than others. I feel that NVUSD is a fairly progressive district, many of these reforms are in action. My job as an academic specialist was created to meet strong professional standards and practice. My job is to work as a peer coach, lead learning walks, facilitate professional development based on my schools' needs. Change is hard. And not everyone meets change with open arms. I feel like we are in this very awkward growth spurt. Many teachers are excited about the new standards, curriculum and assessments and many feel like we are changing too much. So far this year we have worked on revamping reading intervention, ELD, academic language, math and piloting a new language arts program. I float in this odd position of being out of the classroom, but NOT administration. I notice that in our need to reform the entire educational system, we are not giving teachers time to reform. The above plans for reform are great, but the all require a lot of time. I fear that if we reform everything with a sense of urgency, and a lack of planning time for teachers, we will turn reform into another failed educational fad.
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1. Notes from A New Culture of Learning- John Seely Brown
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December 2016
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