Friday, June 19, 2009
Excellent Spring Meeting
The Prichard Committee's spring meeting finished earlier this afternoon. Michael Barber offered an outstanding presentation on the world's best-performing schools, complete with some thoughts on leadership that I'll share as soon as I have time to breathe, and the members have been deep in conversation about how to move Kentucky learning higher faster. Even before that, I'd love for others who were there to share what they thought was most valuable. Bring on the comments!
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It can be depressing listening to discussions about Big Issues and Solutions in education, and it's inspiring occasionally to learn about quick fixes and easy steps that can have big effects. Barber's discussion of the overarching importance of improving teacher quality had a few easy steps, including changing societal attitudes about the desirability and value of a career in teaching. His examples of the evocative ad campaign in England during and since the Blair Administration was great. Apparently it was a significant factor in raising the appeal of a teaching career from 92 out of 150 in 1997 to 1st in 2005, and 4th in the 2008 survey. That's a pretty easy step we can take now, locally or statewide or nationally.
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