His list of what he'd learned from the Forum's report, Democracy at Risk, is most interesting:
What I learned from looking at these far-from-perfect numbers is that the nations that do well on these comparisons do things I wish we did, including:
- Funding their schools equitably, often nationally, and refusing to allow the disparities we see in this nation;
- Taking care of their children by providing national health care, early childhood education, safe neighborhoods, and quality housing;
- Supporting a professional teaching corps by providing financial support to become a teacher, ensuring mentoring programs, and investing in ongoing professional development;
- Making sure there is a supply of well-prepared and well-supported teachers for every child and every school;
- Relying upon performance assessments, and assessments of learning at the school and classroom level, to gauge how schools are doing;
- Using assessments that engage students in higher order thinking processes to solve real-world problems; and
- Refusing to use standardized assessments for high-stakes decisions.
What we need is a system of national policy supports for schools that insures every child, regardless of condition, has equal access to a good school, with good teachers, where what they learn is judged by what they can do on complex tasks.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note that comments on this blog are moderated.