Education Commons^™

Alternative Routes To Teacher Certification

Occasional Paper Series

Alternative routes to teacher preparation are clearly here to stay. A growing research literature on non-traditional pathways suggests the complexity of the task ahead. This report offers new teachers the opportunity to tell their own stories in their own words.

Commentary, Marjorie Siegel

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Commentary, Susan Freeman

Occasional Paper Series

Silver Linings, Gil Schmerler

Occasional Paper Series

Looking for rays of sunshine amidst an educational landscape that has taken a particularly horrific beating in the last decade or two is a difficult – maybe quixotic – undertaking.

“If We Look To Buy The Cheapest Paper, Why Not The Cheapest Teachers?”, Fred Klonsky

Occasional Paper Series

Describes the assessment driven state of the author's school district in Illinois.

Teaching While Lesbian And Other Identities: Sexual Diversity, Race, And Institutionalized Practices Through An Autoethnographic Lens, Sondra S. Briggs

Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership Dissertations

The implicit acceptance among educators and in institutions of learning that discussions around LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) issues are off limits perpetuates the marginalization of these identities and those who inhabit them. In K-12 schools and college classrooms the prevailing silence sends disturbing messages about the treatment of adults and children when their sexual orientation fails to fit neatly into prescribed binary classifications. As one who has been silent as well as silenced, I understand this dichotomy from a unique perspective. Moreover, my lived membership within diverse cultural and racial groups that have been routinely marginalized through institutionalized practices …

Sustaining The Teaching Profession, Ronald Thorpe

New England Journal of Public Policy

Within the United States and across nations, there seems to be consensus that teacher quality is the most important school-based variable in determining how well a child learns. While such an observation hardly sounds like headline news, it is a milestone in the development of teaching as a profession. It suggests where investments should be made if people really are serious about student learning. It also explains why policymakers and the public should care about what it means to be an effective teacher and what it will take to create and sustain a teaching workforce defined by accomplished practice. Teachers, …

Schools Of Innovation, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Act 601, passed in April 2013, allows for schools to apply to become “schools of innovation.” Accepted schools receive flexibility from certain regulations in order to facilitate the use of innovative approaches to teaching and learning. In this policy brief, we discuss the history of Act 601, similar models in other states and their results, the application and approval process, the 2014-15 schools of innovation, and the role of the Office of Innovation for Education in supporting schools of innovation.

Dewey's Epistemology: An Argument For Warranted Assertions, Knowing, And Meaningful Classroom Practice, Deron Boyles

Deron R. Boyles

In an effort to navigate the treacherous path between professionalism and social relevancy, this essay takes up an area of professional philosophy - epistemology - with the intention of reclaiming the integrative role John Dewey held for philosophy and classroom practice. Deron Boyles asserts that epistemology can and should represent an area of inquiry that is relevant and useful for philosophy of education, especially as it develops classroom practices that foster inquiry. He specifically seeks to revive Dewey’s conception of warranted assertibility in an effort to show the value of fallibilist epistemology in practical and social teaching and learning contexts. …

Conditions Of Possibility And Agency: A Qualitative Inquiry Into The Professional Lives Of Three Women In The Liberal Arts Academic Disciplines, Angelyn Hayes

Educational Policy Studies Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to research the experiences of female academicians in traditional liberal arts academic disciplines at one institution. The challenges of being a female academician are revealed in statistical data about faculty rank, tenure, and salaries as well as in descriptive accounts of the environment that women encounter in the higher education institutions. However, the intersection of women and the academic disciplines rooted in the liberal arts tradition is a neglected arena of investigation. This research involved a series of qualitative in-depth interviews with three women representing biology, psychology, and English at a small public college …

Dewey's Epistemology: An Argument For Warranted Assertions, Knowing, And Meaningful Classroom Practice, Deron R. Boyles

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

In an effort to navigate the treacherous path between professionalism and social relevancy, this essay takes up an area of professional philosophy - epistemology - with the intention of reclaiming the integrative role John Dewey held for philosophy and classroom practice. Deron Boyles asserts that epistemology can and should represent an area of inquiry that is relevant and useful for philosophy of education, especially as it develops classroom practices that foster inquiry. He specifically seeks to revive Dewey’s conception of warranted assertibility in an effort to show the value of fallibilist epistemology in practical and social teaching and learning contexts. …

Teaching--From Occupation To Profession: A Response, Robert S. Peterkin

New England Journal of Public Policy

Educational reform must go beyond a restructuring of the teaching occupation. A realistic approach would include strengthening the principalship, reestablishing the primacy of education as the focus of public schools, improving the physical plant, increasing parental participation in the decision-making process, and aligning schools with the external communities — especially the business and university communities.

Teaching--From Occupation To Profession: The Sine Qua Non Of Educational Reform, Bernard R. Gifford

New England Journal of Public Policy

Many problems have been blamed for the crisis in public education. This article argues that the teaching occupation as it currently exists is one problem whose solution promises to yield significant consequences in terms of pupil learning. That solution, according to the author, is to restructure the teaching occupation to bring about a greater appreciation of and respect for teaching as a high-level activity that supports self-evaluative behavior — a professional consciousness that encourages teachers to see themselves as evolving practitioners capable of learning from errors, rather than as nonreflective paraprofessionals armed with a set of error-proof teaching methods applicable …