Achieving High Educational Standards for All Conference Summary (2002) / Chapter Skim
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Part II: Perspectives of the Co-Moderators:
Part II: Perspectives of the Co-Moderators:
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Pages 115-122
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Part II Perspectives of the Co-Moderators
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How do we ensure that the school administrators who hire and supervise teachers, select curricula, and launch reform efforts become smarter about doing those things? And how do we help policy makers become smarter about using research to guide their efforts?
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Various presenters at the conference argued convincingly that there is an intellectual basis for making vastly improved education, characterized by research-based new practices, in at least the following domains: · Early childhood care and education: classrooms serving preschoolage and kindergarten children need to offer environments rich in linguistic and cognitive stimulation, exposure to authentic opportunities to learn and practice emergent literacy and math skills, activities structured by planful thinking about curriculum, and many ways of learning and of representing knowledge about the world. Also, the cognitive and linguistic advances of children in these settings become possible only if they have warm relationships with the adults.
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Such an approach teaches science by modeling the procedures engaged in by scientists, rather than treating science as a static body of knowledge. The conference presenters described new practices for each of these domains instructional procedures that incorporate the principles of integrating skills with meaning, providing opportunities for constructing new understandings, connecting new knowledge to old, and promoting active engagement.
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And it is crucial that administrators understand the complexity of what teachers embracing new practices are undertaking, so they can ensure: · structural support, e.g., mentoring for new teachers, changing schedules to accommodate longer classes or coteaching, availability in the school of specialists to provide help when children have reading or language problems, speak a second language, or have special learning needs; · sensible curricula, i.e., those that scaffold the performance of novice teachers while giving more skilled teachers lots of opportunity for variation, expansion, and enrichment; · adequate professional development, i.e., coherent school site-based programs focusing on the new practices; · ongoing teacher engagement, e.g., by involving more advanced teachers in assessment, research, mentoring of less experienced teachers, or other professional activities; and · appropriate incentives, i.e., procedures for recognizing and expressing appreciation of professional engagement and improved practice. ENSURING THE NEW PRACTICES WORK AT SCALE AND IN CONTEXT The new practices outlined above represent our best bet, based on current research findings and on theory, about how to improve educational outcomes for children.
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education policy and research establishment is the absence of a mechanism for exploiting basic research that is relevant to practice or for ensuring that practices proven effective can travel beyond the site where they were developed. Three bodies have addressed this issue: the National Academy of Education with its Recommendations Regarding Research Priorities (1999~; the National Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board's report called Investing in Learning (1999)
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Nonetheless, the early imposition of high stakes associated with the tests has caused distress among educators and parents, is suspected of leading to increased dropout rates, has powerfully highlighted the racial and ethnic divide, and has led to negative consequences for many schools. Standards and accountability can be imposed without unfair stakes for students or schools (National Research Council, l999c)
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