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Thursday, October 10, 2013

Why the ‘GREAT Teachers and Principals Act’ is not great

Why the ‘GREAT Teachers and Principals Act’ is not great:

Why the ‘GREAT Teachers and Principals Act’ is not great

(Reuters)
(Reuters)
Legislation in Congress called the GREAT Teachers and Principals Act sounds good but is anything but great in its proposal for new educator preparation programs, according to this post by Kenneth Zeichner, the Boeing Professor of Teacher Education at the University of Washington, a former vice president and current fellow of the American Educational Research Association, and a member of the National Academy of Education. He is also a  former elementary teacher and Professor and former associate dean of teacher education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has done extensive research on teaching and teacher education.
By Kenneth Zeichner
During the last few years, The New Schools Venture Fund (NSVF), a major private funder of K-12 charter schools, has been intensely involved in creating and promoting a bill (the GREAT Act) in the U.S. Congress. This bill, if passed, would lead to the establishment of teacher and principal preparation programs that would not be subject to the same level of accountability as other state-approved programs. The bill is a part of a broader movement to disrupt the current system of college and university teacher education and replace it with deregulation, competition, and a market economy.
There is a need for greater transparency of these private efforts to influence public 
Why reading test scores flatten out in 12th grade
Why do reading scores on standardized tests flatten out in 12th grade? Here’s a post that explains it by E.D. Hirsch, founder and chairman of the Core Knowledge Foundation and professor emeritus of education and humanities at the University of Virginia. … Continue reading →