EDUCATION TIPS

Democracy is a learning theory.

This is cross-posted from my own blog, Technopaideia, because it seems relevant to Education Policy Blog as well. -CraigIf you ask most Americans about the meaning of democracy, you will likely hear the response: “Democracy is when everyone gets a vote.” You might also hear about representative government, “one man, one vote,” or something about elections of executive, legislative, or judicial authorities. The American public thinks that democracy is the political system that the American revolutionaries fought England for—replacing its monarchy with our...

Series on Community Organizing at OpenLeft.com

For those who are interested, I have been writing a weekly series on "Core Dilemmas of Community Organizing" at the blog Open Left, which they have kindly been promoting to the front page. Some of these are rewrites and expansions of posts that appeared here earlier, and others are and will be new. I'll cross-post them when they seem most relevant to educators, but I think the Open Left audience is more likely to be open to broader discussions of organizing in gener...

Taking on Teacher Education III

I didn't want to cut off the lively discussion about NCLB -- whose ox is getting gored and who is complicit in its consequences, both intended and unintended. But that conversation is slowing some and I want to talk one last time during April about teacher education in particular. I'll focus on the third of the questions that I raised early on: Are the people responsible for teacher education doing the job?There are numerous individuals (e.g. the Washington Post's Jay Mathews) and blue ribbon panels (e.g. the one headed by former Teachers College President Art Levine) who are inclined to say...

New Report on "Democracy at Risk"

Today the Forum for Education and Democracy released an important new report on the 25th anniversary of the release of "A Nation at Risk." Entitled "Democracy at Risk: The Need for a New Federal Role in Education," the report--written by Linda Darling-Hammond, George Wood, Beth Glenn, Carl Glickman, Wendy D. Puriefoy, Sharon Robinson, Judith Browne-Dianis, John Goodlad, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Deborah Meier, Larry Myatt, Pedro Noguera, Nancy Sizer, Ted Sizer, and Angela Valenzuela--argues strenuously for a new approach to education at the Federal level. The authors write:"We do not provide equal...

GET OUT YOUR POM-POMS: PREP ASSEMBLY

As a retired NEA member, I get their monthly Works4Me e-newsletter, a cheery little number usually dedicated to small, homey tips and tricks for making a classroom run more smoothly—items on the order of inexpensive (but cute!) bulletins boards and what to do when those darned kids forget their pencils. I skim W4M because I want to know what’s important to teachers, what they care deeply about—enough to share with a million of their colleagues. The well-established gap between practice and policy is usually on full display, but I hold out hope, every month, that Works4Me will feature a hard-hitting...

Monthly Forum: What should teachers know and be able to do?

She had imagined that she knew the material on Thoreau and Emerson almost by heart, that preparations for these first lectures would be easy, but she soon discovered that knowing something and teaching it are as different as dreaming and waking. May Sarton The Small RoomThis is the second in my April series of musings about teacher education. Thanks to all who commented after the first post about whether one can be taught to teach well. Today's question: what must teachers know and be able to do?This is the usual way of phrasing the curriculum question. The usual answer to the...

Be a Teacher. You Can Make A Difference.

This is crossposted from Gene Glass's Education Review for whom this was originally written. It was "published" on 4/15, and as copyright holder I can crossposted whereever I choose. I think it is relevant at least in part to some of our recent discussion. It is long, but I hope also useful. Bigler, Phillip & Bishop, Stephanie. (Eds.) (2007) Be a Teacher, You Can Make a Difference: By America’s Finest Teachers. St. Petersburg, FL: Vandamere PressPp. 224 $20 ISBN 0-918339-70-7 Reviewed by Kenneth J. Bernstein April 15, 2008 Let me begin by quoting from the end of the forward of this...

Community Organizing and Schools: It Works (Community Organizing and Urban Education)

I've been off blogging at OpenLeft, I'm afraid. But here are the "key findings" from a new study on community organizing and schools:Data suggest that organizing is contributing to school-level improvements, particularly in the areas of school–community relationships, parent involvement and engagement, sense of school community and trust, teacher collegiality, and teacher morale. Successful organizing strategies contributed to increased student attendance, improved standardized-test-score performance, and higher graduation rates and college-going aspirations in several sites.Our findings suggest...

Teaching as craft?

As the launching pad for this short entry, I'm going to use two comments from Barbara's entry last week, both of which argued that teaching is an art. That metaphor is ambiguous, perhaps usefully so, because it implies that there is creativity involved, and that there are also aesthetic norms with which (and against which) teachers work. But sometimes people use the phrase to refer to the improvisational nature of teaching, the thousands of decisions that must be made on the spot that can work beautifully but also often shapes the first phase of a teacher's career into the professional equivalent...

I hope to generate some conversation about teacher education and development this month. So I'll post a "provocation" once a week and welcome comments from member bloggers and guests about this issue of particular interest to me. Right now, I imagine asking the following questions:1) Can we teach someone to teach?2) What must teachers know and be able to do?3) Are the people currently responsible for teacher education doing the job well?4) In what kinds of schools can talented, well-educated teachers be most successful?So here goes: Can we teach someone to teach?I've spent three decades trying...

New GI Bill Gaining Support Despite White House and Pentagon Opposition

Cross-posted at Schools MatterHere are a few facts offered in a Feb. 13 piece from The Hill on a bill offered by Sen. Jim Webb to re-write the GI Bill:Webb’s bill, which has 32 co-sponsors, would cover the full cost of attending a state university for in-state residents and provide a stipend for living expenses. The benefit is capped at the cost of the most expensive public state college or university. The total cost to the federal treasury is projected at about $2.5 billion per year.Currently, the most a veteran can receive is approximately $9,600 a year for four years. Those who served combat...