This was written by Stanford University Education Profession Linda Darling-Hammond, who directs the Stanford University Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and was founding director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. A former president of the American Educational Research Association, Darling-Hammond focuses her research, teaching, and policy work on issues of school restructuring, teacher quality and educational equity. This first appeared at InsideHigherEd.com

By Linda Darling-Hammond

Teacher education has been under siege in the last few years, the first line of attack in the growing criticism and more aggressive regulation of higher education.

Most recently, the U.S. Department of Education proposed — in a highly contentious negotiated rule-making exercise — to use test scores of graduates’ students to evaluate schools of education, despite the warnings of leading researchers that such scores are unstable and invalid for this purpose. Furthermore, in an unprecedented move, the department would limit eligibility for federal TEACH grants to prospective teachers from highly rated programs, denying aid to many deserving candidates while penalizing programs that prepare teachers for the most challenging teaching assignments.

This was only the most recent example of how education reformers have made teachers and teacher education a punching bag, painting those in the entire field as having low standards and being unwilling to accept responsibility for the quality of their work.

All you need to know about why the University of Virginia governing board needs a serious shakeup can be found in an interview that my colleagues did with the school’s president, Teresa Sullivan.

If you don’t know about the leadership crisis at the university this summer, read this. If you do, move right ahead to this story, by reporters Donna St. George and Jenna Johnson, which says about Sullivan:

Pressed several ways, she said she does not know what precipitated the effort to force her out.

It’s the middle of August, which means it is Shark Week, and to mark the 25th anniversary of the popular show, the education arm of the Discovery Channel has a gift for teachers.

The present is in the form of lesson plans — for grades K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 — that are linked to videos that have been shown during the past quarter of Shark Week broadcasts, which each year draw millions of viewers.

Discovery Education is making its videos about sharks — which are produced with scientists from around the world — available to schools and giving them the lesson plans for classroom use. It is the latest example of media companies taking content produced for large audiences and using it in schools.

This was written by Larry Ferlazzo, a high-school teacher in Sacramento who writes a blog for educators and a teacher advice column for Education Week Teacher. He also has authored four books on education. This first appeared here .

By Larry Ferlazzo

Music and creativity entrepreneur Derek Sivers has a popular TED Talk titled “Leadership Lessons From Dancing Guy.” Here’s the video and transcript of his three-minute talk.

Unfortunately, at least through my eyes as a 19-year community organizer and nine-year high-school teacher, Dancing Guy models many poor leadership traits.

A leader who shares the values of democracy, justice and diversity (among other things) and is serious about building long-lasting change — change that will not depend on him — does not begin by coming up with an idea and acting on it alone.

Instead, the democratic leader begins by leading with his/her ears, asking people what they see that needs to be done. After some idea testing, he/she gets reactions from others so that the idea can be adapted in minor or major ways and ownership becomes shared.

Yes, Dancing Guy can get people dancing at a concert for a short time. But those dancers will forget about him in a few hours. An inspirational speaker can get people jazzed up for an hour or so in the wake of a powerful presentation. A teacher can dress up in a costume and put on a performance for one class period — or be the constantly entertaining “sage on stage” — and perhaps make the learning a little bit stickier.

This was written by Marion Brady, veteran teacher, administrator, curriculum designer and author.

By Marion Brady

E.D. Hirsch, Jr.’s book, “Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know,” was published March 1, 1987.

So it was probably in March of that year when, sitting at a dining room table in an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, my host — a
Third grade teachers learn how to teach common core mathematics in Tennessee. (Mark A Large/AP) publishing executive, friend, and fellow West Virginian — said he’d just bought the book. He hadn’t read it yet, but wondered how Hirsch’s list of 5,000 things he thought every American should know differed from a list we Appalachians might write.

I don’t remember what I said, but it was probably some version of what I’ve long taken for granted: Most people think that whatever they and the people they like happen to know, everybody else should be required to know.

In education, of course, what it’s assumed that everybody should be required to know is called “the core.” Responsibility for teaching the core is divvied up between teachers of math, science, language arts, and social studies.