Merrill Vargo
It often seems as if the rest of the nation – and certainly education policymakers in Washington – wants to avert its eyes from California. Many of the large national foundations have stopped or curtailed their investments here, and the federal government seems to have followed suit: California has yet to receive Race to the Top money, there is no word on California’s request for a waiver on NCLB, and when researchers cite “cutting-edge” work, it is usually happening somewhere else. The message we get is that state policy in general and education policy in particular in California is pretty much a mess and until we get our house in order, we shouldn’t expect either any help or any respect. The fact that six million kids go to school here is apparently their tough luck.
But there is another story about California, and it is the one entitled “The Future Happens Here First.” I don’t mean just in Silicon Valley, though that’s part of it. I mean the future of education often happens in California schools and school districts first. Looking back, major forces like large-scale demographic change and the explosion of
Aspire to expand residency program for teachers in training - by John Fensterwald
Aspire Public Schools is significantly enlarging its Teacher Residency program, an intensive teacher training model that San Francisco Unified and about two dozen urban school districts nationwide have adopted to better prepare new teachers from day one in the classroom. Under a teacher residency program, teachers in training do