| 50 Powerful Stories -- Will Yours Be One of Them? |
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We're publishing a book of powerful stories, and yours could be featured - if you take the time to share it with us. Since the Rethink Learning Now campaign launched on September 8, people's insights about learning and teaching have been steadily rolling in from across the country - and not just to provide inspiration, but also to serve as a road map for how to create healthy, high-functioning learning environments for all children. We're off to a great start - but it's not nearly enough. If we really want to rethink learning NOW, we need to add even more voices. Not only that, we need to find a way to make your stories and insights available to a much wider audience. That's why we're excited to announce that, in the fall of 2010, Rethink Learning Now: 50 Powerful Stories of Teaching & Learning Across America will be published in order to help us accomplish two goals: First, clarify what an optimal learning and teaching environment actually looks like; and second, share actionable strategies for helping more schools provide those types of experiences for everyone. The good news is there's still time to share your story and be considered for publication in the book. So please take a few minutes this holiday season to reflect on your most powerful learning experience. Your story might involve a club, a church group, a school experience, a course, or something else. The only criteria are that it was a deeply meaningful and real learning occurred. Then, share your story with us. Together, we can ensure that all schools become thriving, supportive environments where all young people receive the same opportunity to participate in the American Dream. Join the chorus - and share your voice - today!
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Approach on Education Needs an Overhaul
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The recent release of the Department of Education's Race to the Top  application has me anxious and hopeful. On the one hand, we've been through a trying eight years of the failed No Child Left Behind Act. Schools have dumbed-down and narrowed curricula, cutting the arts, physical education and more in the name of prepping for tests. Some kindergartners have forsaken rest time and recess for test prep; field trips have been replaced by worksheets; and some students likely to fail the tests have been pushed out of schools. On the other hand, the promise of what targeted, serious federal funds can do is tantalizing to those of us faced with daily decisions of which services we may have to cut and which we are mandated to carry out. With this in mind, the following is one school principal's proposal to policymakers as they prepare to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA, which largely determines how we create and fund the education our children need and deserve.
To read more, click here. |
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Featured Resource
The Forum Outlines Its Policy Prescriptions for Investing in Teaching, Learning, and Fairness
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| This fall, in conjunction with its involvement in the Rethink Learning Now campaign, the Forum hosted three separate policy briefings on Capitol Hill - one for each of the campaign's core pillars of a high-quality public education - powerful learning environments, highly effective teaching in every classroom, and a system committed to ensuring fairness so all children have the same basic opportunity to learn. At each event, which feature Forum conveners and students, teachers, and principals from schools across the country, the Forum outlined specific recommendations for the next iteration of federal education policy. To access those briefings, and to watch video of the events, click here. |