|
The $4.3 billion "Race to the Top" federal funds provide an unprecedented opportunity to drive landmark teacher quality reforms across the country. The focus is right. Hard evidence confirms that teacher quality is the key to improving student achievement. The timing is none too soon. A Nation at Risk rang the clarion call about U.S. education 27 years ago this month. The U.S. has fallen behind many of its competitor nations in educational attainment and achievement. Can reforming the teaching profession lead the way to a world-class education for America’s students in the 21st century global economy?
The contributors to a new book edited by Dan Goldhaber and Jane Hannaway, Creating a New Teaching Profession, argue the answer is YES, but it will require rethinking the processes that govern teaching talent from the ground up. In this book, notable scholars, including Eric Hanushek (Stanford University), Frederick Hess (American Enterprise Institute), Alan Blinder (Princeton University), and Jennifer King Rice (University of Maryland) draw on evidence, international practice, and private sector lessons to identify systemic factors that determine the quality of the U. S. teaching workforce and propose bold reforms to tackle this human capital challenge. Chancellor of New York City Schools Joel Klein, AFT President Randi Weingarten, Dean of Penn State School of Education David Monk and Co-Founder and Partner of Bellwether Education Andrew J. Rotherham respond to the bold new approaches posed by the scholars and weigh in on the practical and political promise and pitfalls of these reforms.
Click on title to read full article:
 Book Argues for How to Improve the Teaching Corps
Education Week
April 27, 2010
|
Joel I. Klein, Chancellor, New York City Schools
Joel I. Klein has served as chancellor of New York City schools since 2002, overseeing more than 1,500 schools with 1.1 million students. Previously, he was chairman and chief executive officer of Bertelsmann, Inc. From 1997 to 2001, Klein was assistant attorney general in charge of the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division. His appointment to the U.S. Justice Department came after he served as deputy counsel to President Clinton from 1993 to 1995. Klein has had a long-standing interest in educational issues: he studied at New York University’s School of Education and later taught mathematics to 6th-graders at a public school in Queens. He has served as a visiting and adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and has published several articles in leading scholarly and popular journals.
Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers
Randi Weingarten is president of the more than 1.4-million-member American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO. She was elected following 11 years of service as an AFT vice president. In September 2008, Weingarten led the development of the AFT Innovation Fund, an initiative to support sustainable, innovative, and collaborative reform projects developed by members and their local unions to strengthen public schools. She is the former president of the United Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 2, representing approximately 228,000 nonsupervisory educators in the New York City public school system. Weingarten is currently co-chair of New York City’s Municipal Labor Committee, an umbrella organization for the city’s 100-plus public-sector unions, including those representinghigher education and other public service employees.
Andrew J. Rotherham, Co-Founder and Partner, Bellwether Education
Andrew J. Rotherham is a co-founder and partner at Bellwether Education, a non-profit organization working to improve educational outcomes for low-income students. Rotherham leads Bellwether's thought leadership, idea generation, and policy strategy work. He also writes the blog Eduwonk. com, which an Education Week study cited as among the most influential information sources in education today, as well as a regular column for U.S. News and World Report. Rotherham previously served at The White House as special assistant to the president for Domestic Policy during the Clinton administration and is a former member of the Virginia Board of Education. He is the author of more than 100 articles, book chapters, papers, and op-eds about education policy and politics and is the author or editor of four books on educational policy. Rotherham is a senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council and serves on advisory boards and committees for various organizations, including The Broad Foundation, Harvard University, and the National Governors Association.
David H. Monk, Dean, Penn State School of Education
David H. Monk is professor of educational administration and dean of the College of Education at Pennsylvania State University. Before this, he was a member of the Cornell University faculty for 20 years. He was the inaugural co-editor of Education Finance and Policy, the journal of the American Education Finance Association, and serves on its editorial board along with those of the Journal of Education Finance, Educational Policy, and Journal of Research in Rural Education. Monk specializes in education finance, educational productivity, and the organizational structuring of schools and school districts. He wrote Educational Finance: An Economic Approach and Raising Money for Education: A Guide to the Property Tax (with Brian O. Brent) and has published numerous articles in leading scholarly journals including Education Finance and Policy, Journal of Education Finance, Economics of Education Review, and Education and Urban Society. 
Linda Perlstein, Public Editor, Education Writers Association
Linda Perlstein coaches writers across the country as the public editor of the Education Writers Association and writes the Educated Reporter blog. She worked at the Washington Post from 1994 to 2004, most of that time writing about schools and children, and is the author of two books: Not Much Just Chillin': The Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers and Tested: One American School Struggles to Make the Grade. Perlstein has also written for the The New York Times, Salon, The Nation, Family Circle, Parents and the Columbia Journalism Review and has taught at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Matthew Corritore
mcorritore@air.org
202-403-5796
|
