Weingarten Calls for Real Education Reform, Not Partisan Posturing

Jul 15, 2011 Career News

There are major differences between the education reform outlined in AFT’s Quality Agenda and the agenda being pushed by self-styled education reformers, AFT President Randi Weingarten told about 2,000 educators at AFT’s Teach 2011 Conference last week.

She called for systemic education reform based on quality teaching with continuous teacher development, rich and meaningful curriculum, and the best ideas from schools here and abroad, and drew a sharp contrast with so-called reformers who denigrate teachers, defund public education and ignore the lessons of top-performing countries.

It’s time to stop talking about the importance of teacher quality. It’s time to start building a high-quality education system by cultivating high-quality educators—whether from excellent teacher colleges or even alternative routes—with ample clinical experience, focused induction, and ongoing professional support throughout a teacher’s career, in an environment that fosters respect.

The AFT’s quality agenda is grounded in research, examples of best practices in successful schools here and abroad and input from teachers who work with kids every day, she said.

It is based on the principles of evidence, equity, scalability and sustainability—all grounded in the belief that we can build educational opportunity for all children if we strengthen the quality of teaching and make the community an integral part of the change and innovation taking place in schools.

Education reform programs should include lessons learned from the success of systems here and abroad.

The top-performing countries all have a strong emphasis on teacher preparation, continuous development, mentoring and collaboration—and in each of these countries teaching is a highly respected profession.

By contrast, she said, so-called reformers distort international comparisons and support stop-start experiments with curriculum, standards, vouchers, merit pay, tour-of-duty teaching and Race to the Top.

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Tags: Education Reform, Reform