(cross posted from my dean's blog)I didn’t expect to spend the Thursday before the Independence Day holiday traveling to Western Washington. Especially not in a four-seater charter plane out of Pullman-Moscow International in the company of President Elson S. Floyd and Murrow College Dean Larry Pintak. But when the university president invites you to a meeting and offers you a ride …When we landed at Paine Field, our plane was dwarfed by Boeing jets stacked up, awaiting insignia painting for many countries around the world. From there, we drove to three meetings with stakeholders in WSU’s initiative...
War on Teachers?
Cross-posted from JDS Social Issues:From my inbox almost two months ago: So, where did this war on teachers, and other public employees come from? I certainly didn't see that coming. A former colleague (a faculty member in a humanities department) was responding directly to word that Pennsylvania was cutting P-12 funding and slashing state support for public higher education. But her consciousness was framed by events in Wisconsin and elsewhere. So I have been paying attention to the news in a new way. Is my colleague right? Is there a “war on teachers”? I think she may right...
Scholarship winners, life's winners
(cross posted from my dean's blog)Forty-seven percent. Within that statistic is news both wonderful and sobering.Nearly half of all of the graduate students who received College of Education scholarships for 2011-12 are the first in their families to go to college. That’s the wonderful part. Those future educators are realizing the American dream of self-improvement. But the number also speaks to the need for financial support, which is especially acute for first-generation students and their families.This spring, faculty and staff volunteers reviewed the scholarship applications. They weighed...
When Engagement is Not Enough
One of my goals as a dean of a school of education has been to expand the notion of what teacher preparation includes. To that end, I have been strongly pushing for the development of community engagement courses and academic programs in my own school and across the college. This is grounded in my ongoing academic research and in my belief that one cannot be a good teacher, administrator or staff in a PreK-12 school without realizing (on academic, experiential, and conceptual levels) that schools are deeply embedded within and an important part of their local communities. To that end, I have been...
"Quite a Lot, Really . . ."
Been meaning to write something substantive, but then I found this as part of a review of a book on Wittgenstein and couldn't resist:Then there is the question of the role of the endnotes in Klagge's study: some are simply references, some elucidations, and yet others mini-essays almost. They constitute some two-fifths of the book, which seems quite a lot really, as Monty Python put it with respect to the amount of rat in the tart.Now that's what academic writing should aspire to. :)From H-N...
No Child Left Behind: What Lies Ahead?
(Crossposted from my dean's blog)In March, the Obama administration announced its plans to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The last time the act was reauthorized, in 2001, it was called No Child Left Behind and became the cornerstone of the Bush administration’s education efforts. NCLB brought with it an increased focus upon testing and accountability in schools.What have we learned from the act during the past decade? What changes would improve it? In my own search for answers, I asked faculty members from various education specialties for their views, which I share...
Miracle schools, vouchers and all that educational flim-flam
is the title of this piece by Diane Ravitch. It appeared at the website of Nieman Watchdog of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, as part of the "Ask This" which is subtitled "Questions the Press Should Ask." Oh if only reporters and writers on education were knowledgeable enough about education to ask questions such as those posed by Ravitch, perhaps we could cut through all the misleading and inaccurate information, the attempts to manipulate the public discourse on education to exclude the voices of those - including both Ravitch (a personal friend) and myself -...
Film Shows Other Side of Education Divide
(Crossposted from my dean's blog)The documentary “Race to Nowhere,” the April 14 finale to our Rethinking Education film series, is very different than “Waiting for Superman” and “The Lottery.”Those first two films deal with mostly low-income students in sub-standard public schools who are looking for a way out. Their goal is admission to successful charter schools. “Race to Nowhere” deals with the opposite end of the socioeconomic spectrum, where parents and students are frustrated with education for other reasons.These families live in places where, by any measure, there are excellent public...
Education: two important proposals
Education is not listed among the enumerated powers of Article I Section 8 of the Constitution. Yet the national governments of the United States have maintained an interest in education going back to the Congress under the Articles of Confederation, which in the Land Ordinance of 1785 established that the 16th of the 36 square miles of the territory in the Northwest being surveyed under the authority of the Congress was reserved for the maintenance of free public schools. The major current Federal involvement in K-12 education, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, was part...
The Finland Phenomenon - a film on schools
On Thursday night I saw the premiere of "The Finland Phenomenon: Inside the World’s Most Surprising School System." This is the latest film by Robert Compton, who perhaps best known for "Two Million Minutes." Let me simply list the key takeaways from the film:1. Finland does not have high stakes tests2. Finland worked to develop a national consensus about its public schools3. Having made a commitment to its public schools, Finland has few private schools.4. When asked about accountability, Finns point out that they not only do not have tests, they do not have an inspectorate. They find...
An incredibly important piece on teaching and education
Sometimes one encounters something that needs no commentary from me - it is complete in itself. I want to share something like that about teaching and education.People who follow the blog Valerie Strauss runs at the Washington Post, the Answer Sheet, experienced that. Valerie often cross-posts things written elsewhere. Occasionally she posts something written directly for her. This morning she posted a piece by Linda Darling-Hammond, who is Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University and was Founding Director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future....
I am a proud union member
I stand with my unionized sisters and brothers, especially in Wisconsin, but everywhere where teachers and unions are under attack.I am the lead union representative for more than 100 teachers in my school.Today, all across the country, teachers are blogging their support for our unionized sisters and brothers in Wisconsin, and you can follow some of the results of that at EDUSolidarityToday I want to tell you why I am proud to be a union member as well as a teacher.I teach my students one period a day. We have 9, since some students take a zero period...
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