Unfortunately, education has been rather low-profile this election cycle. I offer here a brief overview of education adviser Linda Darling-Hammond's work, that we may better understand the advice she may be giving President-Elect Obama by discussing some of the arguments and conclusions of her academic writing.
As a doctoral student at Teachers College, I have read a few of her 300+ articles and books. I am no expert, but I have a thick highlighted stack of these on the desk here beside me, and I will quote a few in the diary below. I’ll give links and a brief bibliography at the end of the piece.
Linda Darling-Hammond (LD-H) has held chairs in education at Stanford University (currently) and Teachers College, Columbia University (TC). She has been the leading advisor on education to Barack Obama in the primary and presidential election campaigns, and serves as educational advisor on the president-elect’s transition team. Whatever role she will play in the Renegade Administration, her views are likely to influence policy for at least the next four years.
Bio
While at TC, LD-H co-founded the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching, or NCREST. At Stanford she founded the School Redesign Network (SRN). She has also served as president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), was executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, and served on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). Needless to say, she is well respected in the field.
Arguments
Her primary research interest has been quality teaching: what it is and how schools, school systems, and colleges of education need to be reorganized and supported so that all students have equal access to it. A primary assumption, now largely supported by significant amounts of research by her and others, is that high quality teaching is a significant influence, if not the most significant influence, on whether or not students graduate high school (LD-H, 2002). Systemic poverty, poorly designed assessment strategies, and the deprofessionalization of teaching faculty, among other topics, are also explored in her writings.
"Teachers need to be able to inquire sensitively, listen carefully, and look thoughtfully at student work...Motivating students requires an understanding of what individual students believe about themselves, what they care about, and what tasks are likely to give them enough success to encourage them to work hard to learn." (LD-H, 1998)
LD-H has been a vocal critic of both NCLB and Teach for America (TFA). Her primary criticism of NCLB is that no number of carrots or sticks will fix an educational system that is systemically flawed.
"A Focus on Testing Rather Than Investing...when the percentage of Americans living in severe poverty has reached a thirty-two-year high, NCLB seeks to improve the schools poor students attend through threats and sanctions rather than the serious investments in education and welfare such an effort truly requires." (LD-H, Fall 2007)
One site where NCLB and TFA intersect is in the effort to find and place teachers in classrooms. There is a teacher shortage in critical areas (being science, math, special ed., and ESOL) and these programs encourage lowering professional barriers for entry for mid-career changers and younger people. TFA, for example, screens and helps place top-tier college graduates in difficult to staff schools in exchange for a two year service commitment. That large percentages of TFA alumna leave the profession after 3 years is a problem. That it is a solution on a scale of "thousands" rather than "millions" is also an issue.
"It is clear from the evidence that TFA is bad policy and bad education" (LD-H, 1994).
She advocates an increased professionalization of teaching that resembles more the medical training model of academic study + residency than the fast-track temporary licensing that TFA and NCLB actively promote.
Professor Darling-Hammond is exceedingly critical of NCLB’s singular vision for standardized multiple choice assessments when our competitors worldwide have been moving away from such assessments for years. A public education system that does not teach and assess its students using 21st century strategies will not prepare our young people for solving 21st century problems, or for competing with those who do.
"Creating...powerful learning requires rethinking the school organization we inherited from efficiency experts enamored of new assembly line technologies in the 1920s" (LD-H, 1999).
Such learning, for LD-H, depends on critical thinking, creative analysis and production, mastery of new technology, and the ability to work productively with others and effectively present results. She argues that standardized testing is not the best venue for assessing any of these 21st century skills.
Conclusions
Linda Darling-Hammond spends much of her research and writing exploring the strategies adopted in those countries which have passed us on international measurements in science and math. Some of her findings are that these countries require their beginning teachers to have a primary college degree in a subject area followed by one or two years of graduate work learning how to teach. This is in direct opposition to the "ease of entry" approach of NCLB and TFA. Japan’s federal government makes up the difference in annual salaries from local base rates to create a national and professional level of compensation that rivals that of Japanese engineers. In France, preservice teachers conduct original research that informs their practice and that of others, and, "take on a teaching position under supervision, much as a doctor does in a residency" (LD-H, 2005). She goes so far as to advocate the creation of "teaching-schools" that would function similarly to our already proven successful and world-envied teaching-hospitals.
"For an annual cost of $3 billion, or less than one week in Iraq, the nation could underwrite the high-quality preparation of 40,000 teachers annually--enough to fill all the vacancies taken by unprepared teachers each year; seed 100 top-quality urban-teacher-education programs and improve the capacity of all programs to prepare teachers who can teach diverse learners well; insure mentors for every new teacher hired each year; and provide incentives to bring expert teachers into high-need schools by improving salaries and working conditions" (LD-H, 2007).
After 3 presidential debates, Barack Obama and John McCain had answered one direct question about education. However, Linda Darling-Hammond debated Lisa Keegan (McCain’s surrogate) at TC in late October, and added the following insights on specific issues.
On funding issues: "Bob Schieffer made a statement that the U.S. spends more on education than any other country. That is true in higher education. We have a system that is the envy of the world. It is not true in K12 education or in pre-K education as a percentage of GEP. We are about 13th in the world in K-12, and we are 25th in the amount of additional money we have spent over the last five years in terms of increases. So we are falling behind in the investment race that's going on around the world...We spend much more on education of our wealthy students than we do in education of poor students. In most states there is a three- or four-to-one ratio between the highest- and lowest-spending districts."
On merit pay (in Florida, before its repeal): "it was creating a competition among teachers instead of teachers working collegially with one another and with teamwork. It was disadvantaging teachers who took on the neediest students." [I point out that this is not a blanket denouncement, but a critique of a specific implementation in a particular time and place.]
On assessment: "...essay examinations, oral examinations. Kids are doing science inquiries, research papers, technology projects. Those are part of the examination system."
On Obama’s plan for college affordability for teachers: "He has offered service scholarships of $25,000 for people who will come into teaching, a free ride to get prepared to teach in high-need locations and high-need schools," [She also referred to $4,000 tuition tax credits and increases in Pell Grant funds, both for college students in general.]
Education can be a key element to our recovering from this economic crisis long-term, or it may play a role in our continued decline. To have someone who sees the complexity of these problems, and is willing to draw counsel from those who have studied that complexity, gives me much hope going forward that the role of education in our country will be more the former than the latter.
If you have read this far, thank you. This is a long diary, and I had to resist making it longer. But, I hope you have found here something thought provoking, if not helpful, in your own coming to terms with education policy as we move forward.
I'd be very interested in your reactions, thoughts, and/or insights into how to improve education for our children going forward, or in what you expect the Obama administration may do differently from past administrations.
Links and Bib:
NCREST
SRN
AERA
NBPTS
Linda Darling-Hammond's Wikipedia Page
TC's Education Advisor Policy Debate Transcript
LD-H. (1994). This quote is from the Wikipedia page.
LD-H. (1998). Teacher Learning That Supports Student Learning. Educational Leadership. (Full article accessible at George Lucas' Edutopia)
LD-H. (1999). Target Time Toward Teachers. Journal of Staff Development.
LD-H. (2002). Defining "Highly Qualified" Teachers: What Does "Scientifically-Based Research" Actually Tell Us? PDF File
LD-H. (2007). Standards and Accountability Movement Needs to Push, Not Punish. Journal of Staff Development. (This one requires a journal subscription, but can be found here with a 'free trial' offer.)
NYT Profile