STATEMENT BY EDUCATION COMMISSIONER DAVID STEINER
AN AGENDA FOR EDUCATION REFORM IN NYS
December 14, 2009
The following summary is made up of direct quotes in a different order and format from David Steiner’s post on NYSED.gov. The original may be viewed at http://www.oms.nysed.gov/press/AgendaforEducationReform.html
The status quo is deeply unacceptable – NYS needs a comprehensive, integrated and innovative education reform agenda.
Elements of David Steiner’s Reform Agenda
- a demanding, clear curriculum,
- reliable assessments,
- high standards,
- effective teachers in every classroom, and
- great school leadership
- develop clear, content-rich, sequenced curriculum guides
- assessment guides will form the foundation for a new generation of assessments
- assessments that will be redesigned to generate truly useful data for students, teachers, principals and parents
- we will expand curricular offerings to embrace the knowledge and skills our students need in the 21st century, by offering curricula and assessments in the Arts, Economics, and Multimedia/Computer Technology
- for students who otherwise would lack access to special subject matter at their schools, there will be virtual school offerings, filled with the best of interactive, quality, on-line coursework
- we will redesign teacher and school leader preparation
- we will support richer, more extensive, and better supervised clinical experiences for student-teachers and aspiring principals
- we would, for example, expect to see next generation teacher training programs using video as a tool both for demonstrating best practices and for providing aspiring teachers with critical feedback from highly effective mentor teachers
- we will provide incentives to bring effective teachers into our neediest schools and
- encourage more teachers to teach science, math, English language learners, and children with special needs
- we will ask higher education institutions to retool their teacher and school leader preparation programs
- we will, through a limited experiment with rigorous selection and evaluation criteria, ask other providers with track records of success to raise the achievement of high needs students – like cultural institutions and high performing school networks – to pilot teacher and school leader preparation programs
- the evaluation of teachers must take place along multiple dimensions
- the ability of a teacher to raise the academic performance of her or his students is critical, and
- that ability – better supported by new models of professional development – must form part of the evaluation system
- we must be informed by accurate, actionable, and interconnected data
- accelerate the work of building a comprehensive P-20 data system that:
- helps to link student performance data to educator effectiveness,
- provides electronic transcripts for all students,
- connects P-12 education with higher education, and
- integrates non-educational databases (like information on the workforce and health)
- ensure that teachers and schools are able to incorporate formative assessment data into the system to facilitate collaborative analysis of student performance to drive improved instruction
- ensure that the state’s tests become less predictable and more comprehensive
- the next generation of assessments will offer students:
- feedback on their ability to master the crucial foundational knowledge and skills
- demonstration through performance-based assessments the higher-order critical thinking skills they will need for success in higher education and the world of work
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