The Year in Review and The Year Ahead

It was a great year for NCTAF - steps were taken towards moving our nation's education system into the 21st century...

-NCTAF and Bob Wehling released the book Building a 21st Century Education System, which provided policymakers and practitioners with recommendations towards changing the factory-era education model.
-We challenged our state partners to go deeper with the KnowledgeWorks "Map of Future Forces," resulting in cutting-edge initiatives in with our state partners like South Carolina and West Virginia.
-NCTAF addressed "The Future of Teaching" in four MetLife Foundation forums that called attention to the most pressing issues in teaching quality in Georgia, Colorado, Massachusetts and Oregon.
-We held our largest symposium to date, which opened with a challenge and call to action from Education & Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-CA) and former Secretary of Education Richard Riley.
-NCTAF partnered with Georgia State University and Wachovia Foundation to develop a model for induction of new teachers with outcomes that included higher retention rates and increased student achievement.
-We continued to raise awareness by placing op-eds and opinion pieces in Education Week and USA Today.

...there is so much more to highlight from 2008. But there is even more work to be done in 2009. We must urge our nation's education leaders and stakeholders to come together to work to ensure that every child has a caring, qualified teacher in the classroom. We must work together to create schools that are genuine learning organizations, close the gap between teacher preparation and practice, provide teachers with careers that reward collaboration & expertise, and develop assessments where educators are held collectively accountable for improving student achievement.

We hope you will join us in our pledge on what matters most for student learning: quality teaching in schools organized for success.

We Want Your Ideas: Education Stimulus Package

"Why are we bailing out Wall Street and not our nation's public schools and colleges? Partly because the crisis in financial capital is immediate while our human capital crisis is unfolding gradually. Headlines scream what's happening to our money but not to our kids."

-Robert Reich, Former U.S. Secretary of Labor

We can't afford NOT to invest in our nation's education system. NCTAF still wants to hear your ideas on an Education Stimulus Package. Briefly share your ideas – two or three paragraphs – that explain the concept, its rationale, benefits, and approximate cost. And then join your colleagues across the country in a dialogue about how we can make this happen...Time is running out.

An Education Stimulus Package?

Could a National Education Stimulus Package help us create the schools we need to meet the needs of 21st Century learners?

Across the country significant school improvement initiatives may be shelved or cut as a result of drastic tax revenue and education funding shortfalls. If an education stimulus package were to be enacted, which of these initiatives are of the highest priority? How could they be quickly implemented or scaled-up, and how much would they cost?

Looking beyond the need to fix the schools we have, how can we create the schools we need? How can we transform schools into genuine learning organizations that develop students who are ready for successful participation in a 21st century economy and a complex world?

If you could create an education stimulus initiative, what would it be? Think expansively. How would you apply a rapid infusion of education funding? Your stimulus ideas should be accelerators that generate jobs in education that can significantly improve the participation of students in college, work, and community affairs. It should be possible to ramp your ideas up quickly – within two years - with large-scale investments that produce near-term benefits that will be sustained over time.

Briefly share your ideas – two or three paragraphs – that explain the concept, its rationale, benefits, and approximate cost. And then join your colleagues across the country in a dialogue about how we can make this happen.

Technology for Teachers

As we all get ready for Thanksgiving and many of us prepare to board a plane to visit family, I am reminded if Congressman George Miller's opening speech at our 2007 NCTAF Symposium. The Congressman compared schools to an airplane where students are asked to turn off their technological devices and disconnect themselves from the rest of the world. By pushing technology out of, or at best augmenting what all ready goes on in, the classroom we are not preparing students for the world of post-secondary education nor are we building a 21st century workforce. The jobs that K-12 children will hold require the ability to use technology in an integrated and collaborative way. Technology is how and where collaboration takes place, not simply a tool to accomplish the same workforce tasks. Rather than shutting technology out of the classrooms it can be used to build both the technical and soft skills necessary in today's
workplace: collaboration, critical thinking, computer literacy, and more.

The work must start with preservice teachers. Bringing technology into the classroom without teachers who are prepared to use it effectively is not useful. By embedding technology in each teacher preparation class teacher candidates have the integration of technology modeled as well as taught to them. NCTAF's Teachers Learning In Networked Communities project is helping to begin this process at University of Colorado Denver, University of Memphis, and University of Washington Seattle. Teacher candidates at each site participate in online communities of practice to communicate with their peers and professors during their preservice teaching. This develops their collaborative skills as well as building their knowledge of and comfort with online learning and communication. The teachers then take these skills into the classroom where they continue the community of support for teachers and build the technological skills in their students that they need to succeed.

What other work is being done to embed technology into teacher preparation programs that you know of?

Education & the New Administration

After last week’s historic election, Washington is switching gears to focus on President-elect Obama’s transition to power and his plans once he is sworn in as the 44th president. The major issue on everyone’s minds these days is, of course, the economy. In this morning’s New York Times, Nicholas Kristof writes about the importance of focusing on education, even in these tough economic times. While we at NCTAF and Mr. Kristof may quibble about what exactly should be done to improve education, we could not agree more that education must be a high priority in the Obama administration. Improving the education of our nation’s youth will create adults who are college- and work-ready and able to compete in the global economy.

We hope that President Obama will focus on education as the way to bring sustainable, systemic change and to strengthen our nation’s workforce. Here are a few initiatives that Senator Obama has mentioned during his presidential campaign that we hope he will make a priority as president:

• Improving math and science education: Recruiting more college graduates with math and science degrees to teaching will strengthen the teaching force and deepen the content knowledge of our secondary teachers. In addition, we must strengthen our K-12 math and science curricula to ensure that students graduate from high school with the 21st century skills they will need in a rapidly changing workforce.
• Recruiting teachers: Creating incentives for teachers to teach in high-need schools and subjects will broaden the pool of teachers. Innovative compensation systems will also attract more people to the field and encourage them to grow as teachers. This is especially important in high-need urban and rural schools that struggle to attract the best teachers and whose students need the most support.
• Supporting Teacher Residency Programs: Teacher Residency programs in places like Boston and Chicago have shown strong promise as a way to prepare teachers. With retention rates in the 90% range (while the average 5-year teacher retention rate hovers around 50%), these programs provide teacher candidates with deep clinical experiences that allow them to become successful teachers.
• Supporting mentoring and collaboration: Expanding mentoring time and offering incentives to schools and districts to give common planning time to teachers will create stronger professional learning communities that are able to collaborate to improve education outcomes for students.
• Expanding the role of service and service learning: Creating a way for retirees to engage in service projects will create a cadre of experienced individuals who will bring expertise in their respective fields to improving their communities. An increased emphasis on service learning will allow K-12 students to apply their classroom knowledge in practical applications that also benefit their communities.

As NCTAF blog readers, do you agree that these are the most pressing education issues for President Obama in January? If not, what issues do you think should be his primary focus?

The Future of Teaching

For the past three years, NCTAF and MetLife Foundation have been traveling around the country taking a close look at 21st Century teaching and learning, highlighting best practices and sharing lessons learned. Next week, NCTAF travels to Boston to take a close look at “The Future of Teaching in Massachusetts,” in a forum discussion, featuring education policymakers and practitioners.

Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville will set the stage for the forum discussion, highlighting Massachusetts’ need to transform teaching in ways that better prepare students to be active participants in a 21st century world. In a column last month, Reville addressed the need for the state’s schools to move forward, stating that most school systems are better suited to the 19th century.

“We must build a stronger, more robust education system, building on the success of the past 15 years of education reform, but addressing the immediate and long-term needs of students with greater urgency,” Reville said. It’s what we need to prepare every child in Massachusetts for success in the global 21st Century economy.”

The forum will also feature some of the best practices from around the Commonwealth, including the Boston Teacher Residency program and Clark University’s partnership with University Park Campus School. For a complete list of panelists and more information, click here.

Earlier this year, we visited Georgia and Colorado where we highlighted some of the promising policies and practices in each state and discussed ways to move the teaching profession into the 21st century. You can watch the forums through the NCTAF web site.

NCTAF will continue to shine a spotlight on best practices and urge the nation to rally around 21st century teaching. How are you transforming teaching in your state?

STEM Learning Communities

The current issue of Education Week, highlights a program called South Dakota Counts, in which teachers receive professional development and support from content specialists and teacher leaders in math [who work outside of the education field – this phrase seems contradictory to what was just stated, I suggest taking this phrase out]. Also, the program is working to establish a “math specialist” endorsement for educators who want to be recognized for their skills and their ability to mentor others.

The article states, “Improving elementary math education, and the skills of teachers who deliver math content, has received increased attention from policymakers and advocacy organizations in recent years.” In fact, NCTAF has been looking at strategies for inducting STEM teachers into professional learning communities to reduce teacher turnover and improve teaching effectiveness. In partnership with WestEd, NCTAF is also conducting a literature synthesis about the impact of professional learning communities on STEM teaching, this work is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

NCTAF and WestEd staff will review and synthesize relevant research articles, evaluations and reports, as well as interview practitioners working in STEM learning communities. Any suggestions … we invite you to contact us if you are doing work in this area.