"In just six months, Californians have seen a welcome shift in the public education landscape. President Barack Obama's Race to the Top challenge provided the impetus for California lawmakers, school superintendents and boards, parents, teachers and civic leaders to join forces in new ways to improve public education.
In coming months, a prime area for action at the local level will be getting the right teachers to the right schools and creating schedules that meet the needs of today's students."
In coming months, a prime area for action at the local level will be getting the right teachers to the right schools and creating schedules that meet the needs of today's students."
That includes getting beyond 19th-century farm economy scheduling to a longer school day and year. It also means challenging everybody to think differently about the role of unions in public education.
As U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a speech last year, teachers unions are at a crossroads. Policies created over the past century, he said, "protect the rights of teachers, but they have produced an industrial factory model of education that treats all teachers like interchangeable widgets."
He's encouraging union-management partnerships "to develop better hiring, compensation, evaluation and turnaround strategies."