The Brown Center on Educational Policy at the Brookings Institution has published “Expanding Choice In Elementary and Secondary Education: A Report on Rethinking the Federal Role in Education,” a 31 page report. It says, “The types of school choice now available include choice among traditional public schools within districts (intra–district choice), choice between school districts (inter-district choice), charter schools, school vouchers, virtual schools, and finally, the oldest and most pervasive form of school choice–choice of school when selecting one’s residence.” The report describes each of these with pros and cons. The report recommends expanding choices so that all parents of school-age children have options to better meet needs and values. This requires more choices and well designed information systems. “The reauthorization of ESEA should incentivize districts to establish open enrollment plans such as those currently in place in New York City and Boston.” A well-written valuable report with references.

Also noted is the  National Center on School Choice at Vanderbilt University. Their federally funded work appears to be primarily the publication of scholarly papers and books on the topic.

IALA promotes giving schools greater autonomy over program, staffing and budget; multiple measures for gauging program effectiveness; flexible licensure; and, pilot programs as a way of supporting innovation. See position paper.

We now see interest in spelling out the specific competencies of effective teachers with training programs established to accomplish that result. Public Impact’s report Using Competency-Based Evaluation to Drive Teacher Education and School Turnaround Leaders: Competencies for Success describes the  thorough and successful training of teachers in Singapore and elsewhere. Similarly, the concept of badging  or badges and here is finding greater acceptance as a way of indicating successive accumulation of skills and knowledge, not unlike merit badges of Scouts. The competency approach applies to children and youth as well.

One well-developed plan describes the teacher competencies for a progressive school and how to assess competence. This is a document on our website and available for all to use.

CASEL promotes the development of five interrelated sets of cognitive, affective, and behavioral competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. The result: A shift from being  predominantly controlled by external factors to acting with internalized beliefs and values, caring and concern for others, making good decisions, and taking responsibility for one’s choices and behaviors.

• Self-directed, project-based learning primary focus; driven by constructivist pedagogy (Adults explain; Students explain)
• Personalized Learning Plan (PLP) for all students emphasizing student needs and interests (view video)
• Personalized work space for each student; Internet access (view video)
• Technology infused environment; technology as a tool
• Individual/group projects complemented by multiple teaching approaches based on student needs and interests (view video)
• Achievement demonstrated publicly; highest work place standards are quality goal (view video)
• All students prepared for post-secondary education, workplace and active citizenship (view video)
• All students and staff engage in quiet reading every day (view video)

Other major categories with numerous videos include:

• Authentic Assessment
• Teacher Ownership/Democratic Governance
• Small Learning Communities

The Design Elements professional contributions shows student-centered learning in action, the best I have seen! Thanks to the award winning New Country High School and Avalon School students and staff for their exemplary videos.

“Online learning is sweeping across America. In the year 2000, roughly 45,000 K–12 students took an online course. In 2009, more than 3 million K–12 students did. What was originally a distance learning phenomenon no longer is. Most of the growth is occurring in blended-learning environments, in which students learn online in an adult-supervised environment at least part of the time. As this happens, online learning has the potential to transform America’s education system by serving as the backbone of a system that offers more personalized learning approaches for all students.”

This year’s conference, February 9 – 12, 2011 in Nashville, will feature a President’s Business Meeting for State & National Leadership, similar to the Leadership Forum at past IALA conferences. We enthusiastically support this initiative and encourage organization leaders to attend and urge members to join NAEA. (membership is free!) Dr. Ray Morley of Iowa will represent IALA at the meeting of alternative organizational leaders.

Wayne Jennings, IALA Board Chair
Ray Morley, Vice-Chair
Dan Daly, Secretary/Treasurer

Attempts at circumventing conventional licensing have led to the availability of alternative certification, that is programs for becoming licensed to teach or administer without going through the traditional sequence. A valuable resource for examining this route is www.educationdegree.com and then clicking on Alternative Certification.

This continually updated website of 1,700 colleges and school districts contains valuable time-saving information including B.A, M.A and Ph.D. programs. One example is Teach for America. The website also references a critical review and research on alternative certification.

The professional literature contains much commentary about the quality of teacher training, much of it critical of the selection of candidates and training programs leading to certification. Legislatures in a number of states have initiated new routes to certification, hence the value of the Education Degree website for this fast changing field.

Our IALA website lists colleges for preparing people to work in alternative schools. Click on Alternative Training Programs.

A third brief video is from the fresh mind of Ken Robinson who draws engagingly as he talks about the need for change.

In her new book The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future (Multicultural Education) Linda Darling-Hammond share her views on how schools can be improved for all students from all backgrounds.  She poignantly describes what the United States needs to do in order to build a stronger, more equitable educational system.  Recently she appeared via audio cast on Elluminate talking about both The Flat World and Education, as well as, The Right to Learn.  http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/lindadarlinghammond.mp3

Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard and well known for his books including Multiple Intelligences and Five Minds for the Future, writes of the importance of a variety of educational programs to fit different students. In a recent article, he writes that after studying various approaches such as Reggio Emilia (a program he particularly likes), Montessori, Waldorf, traditional and other types of schools he is more convinced than ever of the importance of “educational pluralism.”

Obvious as it is, schools have insufficiently acted upon the fact that all children do not learn the same. Hence, the need for a variety of educational programs to meet the diverse needs of students. He states, ” The lessons I have learned over the decades are: (1) to be ever open to new and powerful ways of educating and (2) to shun those who block the roads of individualized pedagogy as well as those who seek to impose a uniform way of presenting material.”

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One of the developers Dr. Mark Van Ryzin has not only proved that taking a more “whole child” approach with students is good for them psychologically but also showed a correlation to raised achievement in students. In short, giving students hope can literally last a life time. For more information on the Hope Survey, check out the new website at: http://hopesurvey.org or contact Aaron Grimm: aaron@edvisionsschools.org or 507 248-3738 x7.

Anyone can request a free subscription to the Duffy Reports by the F. M. Duffy Group or obtain other useful materials at the website. Francis Duffy, a long-time advocate for systems change, offers workshops, publications and other services. Email fmduffy@earthlink.net to receive copies of reports.

Bad Students Not Bad Schools by Robert Weissberg, U of Illinois professor emeritus of political science, is a throwback to highly traditional education when principals exercised the power to throw kids out. This easy read, colorfully written with a degree of exaggeration, ultimately lapses in frustration at how to fix schools. Several chapters describe the failures of many efforts at reforming schools with big money, big ideas and big organizations. These are some of the best and most useful parts of the book evidencing considerable research.

Weissberg skewers movements like diversity and equity as distracting for educators and destructive to goals of academic achievement. Weissberg’s single focused interest in academics would eliminate students without demonstrated school success. He has no time for the whole child and other “soft” movements or even the choice movement though he seems ambivalent on that.

We are beginning to see a spate of articles along the lines of Bad Students impatient with the pace of academic achievement and irritated in general with immigration, rights, mandates and law suits. The new Core Standards, constant calls for rigor, increased testing and graduation exams remind me of the 1950s when Why Johnny Can’t Read and other books launched attacks on public education that put educators on the defensive for a decade until Kohl, Dennison, Holt, Silberman and others questioned seats bolted to the floor education. Bad Students Not Bad Schools needs to be read and confronted to better understand the many uncomfortable people frustrated with current schooling.

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