The Gates Foundation Responds: How do we Build the Teaching Profession
Guest post by Irvin Scott.
This is a response to Anthony Cody's post of a week ago, Dialogue with the Gates Foundation: How do we Build the Teaching Profession. This is also posted at the Gates Foundation's Impatient Optimist blog.
Tough, complicated issues like education often don't get the kind of debate they deserve. People who disagree don't see where they have common ground. Each side isn't willing to concede that the other has a valid point of view. So it is especially gratifying that against this often vitriolic backdrop Anthony Cody was willing to come to the Gates Foundation and participate in a dialogue about our work and our shared concerns. Like him, we agree that the education debate often deteriorates to shouting past one another so we welcome the opportunity to engage in a public dialogue about some of the areas where we have common ground. Our goal here is to better understand the perspectives of those with whom we occasionally disagree and to more clearly state where we stand and where we simply just don't know the answers.
In his first blog in this series (also posted here on Impatient Optimists), Mr. Cody raised the issue of building the teaching profession. This is a goal we