Back to the Future of Reading Instruction: 1990s Edition
The year is 1997 and the topic, of course, is improving a failing education system in the U.S. Linda Darling-Hammond explains in the Preface [1]:
This follow-up report, Doing What Matters Most: Investing in Quality Teaching, seeks to gauge the nation’s progress toward the goal of high-quality teaching in every classroom in every community. It draws on data about the conditions of teaching that have become available since the original Commission report was released, and it examines policy changes that have occurred.
This report has five recommendations that may sound familiar:
I. Standards for teachers linked to standards for students….II. Reinvent teacher preparation and professional development….III. Overhaul teacher recruitment and put qualified teachers in every classroom….IV. Encourage and reward knowledge and skill….V. Create schools that are organized for student and teacher success.
We need better standards for teachers and students, better teacher education, better recruitment of teachers focusing on high quality, better reward systems for teacher expertise and outcomes, and better teaching and learning conditions.
Yet, the report also offers some sobering information:
Over the last decade, reforms have sought to increase the amount of CONTINUE READING:Back to the Future of Reading Instruction: 1990s Edition | radical eyes for equity
