By Cheryl Williams, Executive Director, Learning First Alliance (LFA)

 Over the past year, member organizations in the Learning First Alliance (LFA) have shared their perspectives and expertise on the work their members and stakeholders have led in support of public education throughout their careers.  If you've had the opportunity to read some or all of these postings, you'll know that public education professionals are tireless in their work to meet the needs of their students and that no silver bullet exists to "fix" what doesn't work in public schools.  With this, the final Transforming Learning post, we reiterate what we know to be true as professional educators and seasoned policymakers, community members, and parents--

·       Universal, publicly funded, education is our country's most important historic asset and needs commitment and support from all of us, whether we currently have children in the schools or not, to succeed.

·       The work of meeting the needs and increased achievement requirements for all our students is complicated, multi-faceted, and nuanced.

·       Professional educators and elected school officials at the state and local level in no way support the "status quo" when that "status quo" has proven inadequate or unsuccessful in meeting student needs.

·       Many, if not most, of our public schools do an excellent job of supporting student achievement, but when they don't, we all need to work together to make the changes necessary to serve students well, regardless of their socio-economic or family situation.

·       The knowledge and experience of public educators and policymakers should be respected, heard, and acted upon, if sustainable, systemic improvement is to be achieved in our public schools.

·       Strengthening public education requires a collective effort, not one that appeals to individual self-interest in the short term, but one that considers what's best for all our children now and in the long term.

·       All "reform" efforts need to be evaluated for effectiveness, and when those initiatives work well, they should be shared widely to scale up good practice.

·       And, finally, competition for dollars to fund public schools saps time, energy and resources from the important work that educators are involved in. Until we are ruthless in our examination of how we fund our public schools, which currently results in poor communities with insufficient financial and human support, we'll not achieve the progress we need.

 Next step for LFA is the launch this year of an aggressive messaging campaign that will showcase public schools, districts, and communities that are exemplary in their approach to meeting all their students' needs.  We plan to work at moving the national narrative about public education writ large from "we're failing" to "we're working together to improve all our public schools."  All of us in the field acknowledge that there's work to be done, but we also know that we must do it together if we're to succeed.   We invite you to join us in a solution oriented dialogue with the goal of strengthening the institution of public schooling and our nation.  As important, we invite you to abandon fault finding and blame placing on those of us currently working in public schools, so that not only the narrative around our work but the results of our effort will prove positive and provide the results we all want and need.

 Views expressed in this post are strictly those of the author and do not reflect the endorsement of the Learning First Alliance or any of its members.

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Tara is an outgoing, energetic seventh-grader, but she recently became distant and irritable. Her mother's cancer had returned, and the doctors predicted she might not live to the end of the school year. Like Janine, Tara cannot live with her father, so she is dealing not only with the imminent loss of her mother but the uncertainty of where she'll live afterward.

Stefan clearly has special needs, but he lives with a foster parent who refuses to approve special services. Stefan's parents live in his native country, where Stefan watched his father get gunned down in the street and where his father has been in and out of prison after he recovered from his wounds.

A school counselor in another school a few years ago told me the school had 13 pregnant ninth-graders that year, some of them with their second or third child.

One of the primary goals of school counseling is to help remove barriers to learning. Janine, Tara, Stefan, dozens of other students in their school, the 13 teenaged mothers and millions of students across the country face unimaginable barriers every day. It shouldn't be surprising that they're not focused on school as their highest priority. Yet, the education system lumps them together with the general population and labels them low-achieving or under-performing.

Education reform seems fixated on data and statistics, particularly during the past few decades. Test scores and graduation rates don't show the faces of the students behind the numbers. But if we're going to be fixated on numbers, let's consider these numbers:

·       More than half (55.8 percent) of U.S. students live in poverty; 31 million students receive free or reduced lunch every school day (Food and Nutrition Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture)

·       More than one-third (35 percent) of U.S. students live in single-family homes. This represents 19.4 million students. (U.S. Census Bureau)

·       One-third of females in the U.S. are pregnant before the age of 20 (Centers for Disease Control), which amounts to an estimated 750,000 babies born to teenaged mothers in the U.S. each year (National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy)

·       Each year, 3.3 million incidents of child abuse or neglect are reported to Child Protective Services involving 6 million children. Of course, this doesn't include unreported cases. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration on Children, Youth and Families)

·       Approximately one in 10 (9.5 percent) students between the ages of 12 and 17 use illegal drugs or prescription drugs non-medically. (National Institute on Drug Abuse) 

Closing a failing school or firing a principal and 75 percent of the staff will never help those students achieve to the levels of students with both parents in stable middle- to upper-middle income families. Of course we believe every student has the potential to achieve and to learn at high levels, but students in difficult or unusual circumstances need additional support. Without that support, it would be like asking you or me to compete with Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte.

Views expressed in this post are strictly those of the author and do not reflect the endorsement of the Learning First Alliance or any of its members.

Posted by Learning First Alliance at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

By Brian Lewis, CEO, International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)

More than three decades since the first computers began to appear in schools around the country, we still seem to be engaged in a national conversation about whether or not they belong there - whether the investments that our communities have made in education technology can be linked to improved student outcomes.

 Our collective truth is that today's students were born into a world where technology has been a part of their lives from the very beginning. As preschoolers, they pick up their parents' smartphones and seem to intuitively know how to play a game.  Ask a first-grader who is a baseball fan to find information on when his favorite team, the Chicago Cubs, will be playing next, and there is every possibility he will tell you to go to www.Cubs.com. Ask a high school freshman if there should be technology in schools and you will likely get that look that only a 15-year-old can give, telling you that you are "clueless."

 These same students are graduating into a world where they are competing for jobs on a global level - not only on a local, state or national level. The days of the reading, writing and arithmetic being alone at the core of schoolwork are far in the past.  As the new Common Core State Standards recognize, students also need to master the three Cs as well: critical thinking, creativity and collaboration.

Technology already is playing an important role around the country in supporting students as they develop these important skills. It's serving to strategically support educational objectives. It's not about the technology. It's about how districts are using technology to support and enhance curricular objectives and student achievement. As an advocate for education technology at the local, state, national and global levels, ISTE seeks to accelerate the effective and innovative use of technology in schools so that the instances where it is linked to true educational change are increasingly the norm.

 To achieve this goal, it's more important than ever to further the implementation of ISTE's technology standards for the meaningful integration of technology into thriving learning environments, where each student learns on a personalized path and builds the thinking skills requisite for success in today's world. Every aspect of what we do - from professional learning opportunities to tools and resources for schools - must focus on helping educators at all levels engage technology to support learning.

 As a key part of that work, we seek to nurture and promote pragmatic examples of the successful integration of technology into learning and teaching. These specific instances across the curriculum areas provide powerful representations of best practices for schools around the country and the world, as well as demonstrate to policy makers and community leaders how technology - engaged effectively - puts students on the path to success in the 21st century and beyond.

 At ISTE, like every organization or person who has dedicated its time and energy to education, our ultimate responsibility is to serve the best interests of students. As a national and global voice for promoting the effective use of technology in learning and teaching, we are focusing on supporting educators in their mission to ensure that all students achieve their creative and intellectual potential. The time is now for all of us to join together and provide the thought leadership, advocacy, professional learning and resources to ensure that we deliver on the much-anticipated promise to accelerate educational improvements.

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By Dru Tomlin, director of middle level services for the Association for Middle Level Education

 As I read M. Kristiina Montero's article "Literary Artistic Spaces Engage Middle Grades Teachers and Students in Critical-Multicultural Dialogue" (Middle School Journal, November 2012, pp. 30-38), I thought about student voices and how critical they are to school safety and climate. Our journey to better school safety involves tentative steps and uncertain landscapes. We have safety plans, crisis teams, and protocol notebooks--and thank goodness we do.  Maybe our next steps to improve school safety and climate should include other items on this new path; items that connect to the middle grades student.

 Step 1: Mirrors can help us create safe schools. Before buying convex mirrors for our hallways, we need the mirrors we always carry: the reflective mirrors of remembrance. Unfortunately, remembrance is the forgotten "R" in school safety planning. We talk about rigor and relationships with admirable authority and adult sensibility. That dialogue is vital. However, remembrance is missing. We should find that reflective mirror and remember what we were like as middle schoolers. As adults, we wonder, "What were they thinking?" Students' concepts of time, humor, nutrition, organization, socialization, behavior, and safety can be puzzling. But our concepts were puzzling at that age, too.  How organized were we?  How adept were we at socializing?  How often did we make goofy, or even risky, decisions?  How did we feel about safety in school?  That kind of self-reflection is not just a therapeutic act; it is essential to school safety planning. 

 Step 2: Tubas can help us create safe schools.  Before walking briskly to our band rooms, we should think about what buoyed us in the tumultuous waters of middle school. For me, it was my tuba.  I moved a lot, always trying to fit in and find a home in school. Band became that home. Each day began with a huge brass tuba perched on my blue chair.  I blew my heart through that instrument--and made big, beautiful music. What does that have to do with school safety? Everything. As adults, we often scratch our heads when students disengage and wonder, "What's up with that kid?"  But do we know why they're disconnected?  Do we know their interests?  Do we have activities for them?  School safety planning is also about deliberately creating "homes" in our schools; homes where kids can feel connected, secure, and special. 

 Step 3: Notebook paper can help us create safe schools.  Before raiding our school's supply closets, we should think about notebook paper and how students use it. As a middle school student, I used paper to take notes, write essays and stories, and doodle. Drawing cartoons and writing silly captions in the margins of my papers gave me space to express myself. But when Mrs. Meekins, my seventh grade teacher, drew back, I realized I wasn't alone in the margins. Her cartoons and comments on my papers made me happy to be at school. She created a relationship by responding to the voice in the margins. What does that mean about school safety? We care about what students write on the lines of their papers--and we should. However, when it comes to school safety, we also need to see what's written outside the lines. When students write in the margins, or post on Facebook, tweet on Twitter, even scribble on the bathroom wall, they are trying to find a space to be heard. The drawings, poems, and thoughts that end up in the margins can help us understand our students, and create relationships that show students that we hear and care about them. Therefore, school safety planning also means listening to all of our students' voices and creating safe opportunities for them to express those voices in our middle grades schools. 

 While school safety and climate planning is much more complicated than mirrors, tubas, and notebook paper, those three student-centered steps can walk us in the right direction, especially for our middle grades students.

 More School Safety and Climate Resources:

The Effects of School-wide Positive Behavior Support on Middle School Climate and Student Outcomes

http://www.amle.org/Publications/RMLEOnline/Articles/Vol35No4/tabid/2549/Default.aspx

 Reduce Cyberbullying through Climate Control

http://www.amle.org/Publications/MiddleEConnections/December2010/tabid/2323/Default.aspx

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By Francisco M. Negrón, Jr., General Counsel for the National School Boards Association

It is often a struggle to find something positive amidst tragedy. That is especially true in the recent massacre of innocents at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. But, as horrific as this incident was, the tragedy could have been even greater had it not been for the quick thinking and action of the many teachers and school personnel at Sandy Hook Elementary.

It was their actions that kept the remaining students out of harm's way. Actions like teachers quickly locking classroom doors and herding children into back rooms, storage closets and other areas; reading softly to children as shots rang out; passing out crayons and coloring papers to distract young minds from the horror in the hallways.

That kind of action is no accident. It is the result of sound emergency preparedness policies enacted by school board leaders, implemented by superintendents, and carried out by teachers and school officials. It is a sad commentary of American society that violence of this magnitude is no longer reserved for the movies or video games. And it's frightening to contemplate hypothetical attacks in disaster preparedness for our own communities. For this reason alone, the Board of Education of Newtown is to be commended for adopting an effective emergency preparedness plan. But, a plan only works if it is implemented. Much praise also should be given to the Superintendent of the Newtown Public Schools for training employees on the intricacies of the plan. Lastly, kudos are due to the valiant school employees who stuck to the plan and bravely followed their training, putting their lives ahead of the more than 700 students who were in classrooms. There is no substitute for training, training and more training &madsh; especially when it comes to emergency situations, where the clear-headed, rational action of teachers and school personnel can mean the difference between life and death.

It is because of plans and training like those in Newtown, that schools across the United States will continue to be the safe havens they are for the vast majority of students, in spite of the depraved acts of those determined to harm our children. Parents and families can help by being part of the dialogue that encourages engagement among local school district leaders, local law enforcement and the community to determine the best emergency plans for their schools. Once those partnerships are in place, schools can help by regularly training school officials on the procedures. Parents should also understand the emergency plans and should talk to their children in an age appropriate manner about following the directives of teachers and other school officials.

At Sandy Hook, Principal Hochsprung, who gave her life trying to protect her students, posted a letter on the school's website just a few months ago, sharing part of the school's safety plan. That plan involved locking exterior doors, limiting entrance for visitors to the front door, using a visual monitoring system before allowing visitors access, and requiring identification with "a picture id" before granting admission. The school also notified parents that it would lock all of its exterior entrances after students had arrived for class in the morning, and would even require late arriving students to be "signed in at the office." Ever mindful of the community-school relationship, Principal Hochsprung wrote, "We need your help and cooperation for our system to work effectively." Together with a district preparedness plan of training and drills, it seems that there may have been little else a school could do to respond to someone so intent on committing harm.

Now as we are moving forward, we can take comfort in knowing that in spite of everything, the heroes of that day, administrators, teachers, aides and school officials, did what they were trained to do, to prevent a terrible tragedy from becoming even more deadly than it was. In the end, Sandy Hook will be remembered for the heroic actions of its staff and the warm embrace of its community.

Views expressed in this post are strictly those of the author and do not reflect the endorsement of the Learning First Alliance or any of its members.

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By Mel Riddile, Associate Director of High School Services at the National Association of Secondary Principals (NASSP)

 Principal leadership matters--perhaps now more than ever before. As much as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are changing instructional practice in the classroom, we must acknowledge that student learning under CCSS requires a schoolwide transformation that transcends individual classrooms and requires the dedicated, continual attention of the principal. Consider how these five essential schoolwide conditions for CCSS will fundamentally shift the way principals go about leading schools.

1. A culture of college and career readiness. Culture reflects the mindsets and  expectations of everyone in the school and ultimately drives behavior. A CCSS culture reflects the universal expectation that all students will be prepared for life beyond high school, and it encourages students' capacity to imagine their long-term possibilities. In much the same way that a discipline policy becomes ineffective if only half the teachers enforce it, a culture of high expectations must pervade every meeting, every assignment, every interaction with a student

2. Schoolwide literacy. Make no mistake: The success of the new standards will depend heavily on the ability of school leaders to implement schoolwide, cross-content literacy initiatives. In the overblown tension between literary and informational texts, we must realize that fully 19 percent of all words in the standards are some form of the word text. (Most previous state standards were under 1 percent.) The standards call for closer reading of more challenging texts and sophisticated response to them in all content areas. So every teacher--not just English teachers--will have to teach literacy, and principals will have to build their capacity to do so.

3. Student engagement, collaboration, and inquiry. Students cannot improve their reading, writing or discussion skills by listening to a teacher talk, so principals must lead a schoolwide flip in the typical ratio of teacher talk and student work. Reflecting the NASSP Breaking Ranks framework for school improvement, the CCSS call for students interacting with the teacher, with other students, and with ideas. Students will be expected to collaborate and engage in meaningful, productive classroom discussions centered on high-level content. And rather than repeat answers, students will be evaluated on how well they pursue answers to real-world questions. Just as professionals rarely rely on a single discipline to solve complex problems, so will students have to draw on knowledge and understanding of various content areas. It falls to the principal to create conditions for such work across content areas.

4. Instructional time. While they have input into the curriculum, school leaders directly control three variables in teaching and learning: time, setting, and methods. Of the three, increasing quality instructional time may offer the most immediate gains in student achievement. Teachers will likely need more instructional time in order to teach more rigorous, higher-level content in more depth and to integrate literacy skills into their lessons. Even as policymakers are considering ways to extend school days, school years, out-of-school learning, and multi-tiered interventions financially possible, school leaders must find creative ways to optimize the bell-to-bell time they already have.

5. Professional learning. In the short and long run, improving the quality of teaching methods will be the foundation for increased student performance. Yet teachers often lack capacity in the areas that are deemed most critical to the CCSS: higher-order questioning skills and skills in student engagement and empowerment. School leaders face a challenge of increasing the capacity of most of their instructional staff within a relatively brief period of time, and they must do so in the context of the school as a learning organization. Teacher isolation can no longer be acceptable. And effective principals will remove the obstacles for teachers to observe one another, learn from one another, and engage in high-level instructional conversations both locally and virtually.

A recent action brief by Achieve, Implementing the Common Core State Standards: The Role of Secondary Principals, provides an excellent series of starting points for school leaders. Yet underlying the practical steps is a belief in the power of collaboration and collective action. No one person alone can possibly affect the kind of school transformation necessary to successfully implement the CCSS. As the lead learner, the principal must work to build a collaborative learning community. Only then will we release the potential of CCSS to guide a transformation of learning and unleash the potential of all students, regardless of zip code or circumstances.

Views expressed in this post are strictly those of the author and do not reflect the endorsement of the Learning First Alliance or any of its members.

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By Dr. Nancy Bolz, Director of the Kansas Learning First Alliance (KLFA)

As an educator for more than 30 years, mostly at the secondary level, in recent years I've acquired a new appreciation for family and community engagement! Not only have I recently become a parent, but my professional service has led me to better understand the need for both.

I adopted two beautiful little girls five years ago who are now in Kindergarten and 3^rd grade. As a former high school principal, I thought we did a pretty nice job communicating with parents and the community...but then I began getting messages, notes, newsletters, emails, etc. From first the pre-school and now my girls' elementary school! Initially, I felt bombarded and overwhelmed just trying to keep up with all of it. However, now that I've been in this mom role for a little longer, I've come to not only appreciate but EXPECT good communication. I've only had a couple of incidents where I felt caught off guard by a lack of communication, and I immediately went about the business of finding out answers!  So if there are bumps along the road for ME, both an informed educator/administrator and committed mom, you can imagine that lack of communication will create all sorts of chaos where there's less understanding of, and commitment to, the school system. That said, the school also faces a challenge in finding the right balance for effective communication! Gather information about how stakeholders prefer communication, and then create messaging that is understandable and not overwhelming.

When I served as a high school principal before the turn of the century (that really wasn't that long ago), we were really pressing for authentic learning experiences and innovation, so we partnered with High Schools That Work and NCA (North Central Association, now renamed AdvancED) to provide a framework for our work. After their review of our efforts, one of their recommendations was to do a better job telling the public about all of the wonderful programs and initiatives we had in our school. After so many hours spent on coordination and implementation, my initial response was "Isn't it enough that we're doing all this with our students??" And after gaining some perspective, the answer to that was clearly "NO!" If you want people to support you, they have to know about what's going on. So is your job done once you've shared all of that information with them and perhaps even gathered their input? Again, the answer is clearly "NO!"

Perhaps you've noticed that I've only discussed communication thus far and the title includes the word "engagement." What we know now is that just talking at/to people is helpful primarily to ensure they're informed, but to create a truly authentic educational environment for our students, both parents and the community must get directly involved. Here again the challenge is for the school to find a good balance. How do you mobilize beyond your Site Council or the core members of PTO who typically do the lion's share of the work? How do you encourage businesses to open their doors for students to shadow or come share their expertise and/or knowledge with your students? The answer is and has always been...one conversation at a time.

Years ago, someone shared with me anecdotally that research supports that the best way to get people involved is through personal invitation.  Since then, I have tried to make it my practice to individually contact people and ask for their involvement. In practice, these personal invitations must be done with intention to ensure effective and quality engagement from the wider community. Sure, you still want to put a notice in the newsletter or on your website to be inclusive, but frequently those net very little in return. That's why Kansas Learning First Alliance (KLFA) is committed to starting the conversation. As a coalition, we created a 30 minute presentation (PowerPoint, handouts, website) to both share critical information about our schools and connect education to the impact it has on local economics. Our organizational representatives are sharing this message and engaging local school boards and community organizations in a conversation about how they might partner with their schools and support their work.

So how about a New Year's resolution? Start a strategic grassroots effort to engage your local community in building substantive partnerships. Get them involved in the student learning process, and make it mutually beneficial through offering them a way to give back.  Everyone, especially students, wins when effective partnerships and collaboration are part of the educational experience. 

Views expressed in this post are strictly those of the author and do not reflect the endorsement of the Learning First Alliance or any of its members.

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By Annelise Cohon, Program Coordinator of the National Education Association Health Information Network (NEA HIN)

There is a lot to be thankful for during the holidays. As I reflect on my time home this past holiday season, I am reminded of how fortunate many of us are.  But the reality is that many families struggle with food insecurity and hunger can be found in nearly every community in the United States (U.S.). In 2011, more than 16 million children in the U.S. struggled with hunger. Child hunger is a solvable problem, and the National Education Association Health Information Network (NEA HIN) is deeply engaged in  the fight against child hunger, because no student should start the school day with an empty stomach.

Every day in the U.S., 31 million students receive a school lunch--but only 10 million receive a school breakfast. Although research confirms the importance of breakfast and most schools participate in the School Breakfast Program, fewer  than half of children who are eligible eat a free or reduced-price breakfast at school.

There are a number of reasons why students are not participating in their school breakfast program.  The barriers to participation range from stigma from peers to late bus arrivals or a pressure to go directly to class in the morning. NEA HIN and partners have worked with educators from across the country to alleviate these barriers and have helped to feed an additional 70,000 students school breakfast.

Educators are often on the front lines in the fight against hunger and realize, along with others in the school community, the myriad of academic and health benefits associated with school breakfast:

• Principals understand that students who participate in school breakfast programs show improved attendance, behavior, standardized achievement test scores as well as decreased tardiness.
  
  
• Teachers and Education Support Professionals know that providing breakfast to students at school improves their cognitive function, attention, and memory so that they are better able to focus in class.
  
  
• Parents who work early morning shifts or who are rushed in the morning to get their children to school appreciate the fact their children can still receive a healthy, nutritious meal. They know this is one part of their child's overall academic success.
  
  
• Students love eating breakfast with their peers and teachers and are learning healthy eating habits early on that they can carry with them throughout their adult lives.
  
  
• Health Advocates understand how breakfast can be a safeguard against childhood obesity because students attending schools that offer a free breakfast to all students are more likely to consume a nutritious breakfast with significantly more calcium, magnesium, fruit, and dairy products.

Through a partnership with Share Our Strength, NEA HIN created a Start School with Breakfast Guide to help educators and school community members increase student participation in the School Breakfast Program. The guide is available to order or download. In the guide, educators are given the tools needed to increase school breakfast participation.

Child hunger is a serious problem that needs deliberate and decisive action. This year, become a champion for the 16 million children who need a healthy breakfast.  Below are some steps that you as educators can take to get involved in the fight against child hunger.

• Principals learn more about the School Breakfast Program at your school and document  your daily participation numbers of students eating breakfast and lunch.
  
  
• Teachers and Education Support Professionals advocate against child hunger by being aware of your school's current initiatives to provide students with breakfast. Find out if these efforts are helping and analyze how they can be improved
  
  
• Parents learn more about the different ways schools across the country are increasing participation in the School Breakfast Program. The School Nutrition Foundation's  Beyond Breakfast blog is a great place to start and has lots of material and facts about school breakfast, food and nutrition.

To learn more about NEA HIN's breakfast work follow us on Facebook or Twitter. You can also visit us at www.neahin.org/breakfastintheclassroom for more information.

Views expressed in this post are strictly those of the author and do not reflect the endorsement of the Learning First Alliance or any of its members.

Posted by Learning First Alliance at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

By Cheryl S. Williams, Executive Director of the Learning First Alliance (LFA)

Following are examples of how many currently talk about public schools in the United States:

• Our schools are failing
• Our colleges of education do a terrible job of preparing new teachers
• Teacher unions only care about the adults in the system
• The US is losing its leadership place in the world because our students perform poorly on international tests
• The teaching force in the US comes from the bottom half of their class

I could go on, but you get the idea. As someone who has spent her career in public education and who now works with the leadership of the 16 major organizations representing K-12 education practitioners, parents, and elected officials, I know first-hand that the statements listed above are not true or fair, nor do the commonly held beliefs they reflect contribute anything to the work we all acknowledge needs to be done to ensure all public schools serve their students well.

What I do know is true is that everyone involved in public education agrees that we need to make changes in the way we fund, organize and deliver education to an increasingly diverse student population. What we also agree on is that teacher preparation needs to be rigorous, include field experience and assume a workplace that will continue to support ongoing professional learning, so that teachers become more adept in their work as they become more experienced. What is also true is that the organizations in the Learning First Alliance (LFA) are all in the midst of efforts to gather and share the latest experiential and academic research that informs school improvement and is based on real evidence of effectiveness. I would call these efforts "reform" except that term has also been hijacked in service to the assumptions listed above.

For LFA organizations and the members they represent to be successful in their thoughtful, evidence-based, solution-driven initiatives in support of public education improvement, we need to change the way we talk about our public schools and the professionals who work in them. Following are a few suggestions around the statements at the beginning of this post:

• Instead of "Our schools are failing," let's try, "Public schools need to get better at meeting the needs of all our students, regardless of socioeconomic class or ethnicity. And, we all need to work on this together to be successful."

• Instead of "Our colleges of education do a terrible job of preparing new teachers," let's try, "Teacher preparation needs to be remodeled to provide more field experience, mentoring and rigorous course work. This work is already underway in many colleges of education across the nation."

• Instead of "Teacher unions only care about the adults in the system," let's try, "Teacher unions provide a collective voice for classroom practitioners at the local, state and national level and have for some time focused on supporting improved classroom practice. High performing school districts have strong, collaborative relationships with their teacher union."

• Instead of "The US is losing its leadership place in the world because our students perform poorly on international tests," let's try, "International tests provide valuable data for us as we work on improving our public system, and we should closely examine approaches high performing countries use in their education systems to learn from them. However, standardized test scores are only one data point and should be viewed in the context of cultural differences and student populations."

• Instead of "The teaching force in the US comes from the bottom half of their class" (for the record: this statement is not true, but I won't address that now), let's try "Effective teachers need a variety of skill sets and should be intellectually curious and knowledgeable in their field. Teacher preparation institutions should ensure that only the most qualified candidates enter their programs."

If we want our public schools to get better and be as good as we need them to be, we need to change our conversation from accusatory to solution-driven. The current vocabulary, in addition to being inaccurate, impedes real "reform" that is systemic, collaborative and effective.

This year the Learning First Alliance is launching a messaging campaign to frame the conversation about our public schools in a way that reaffirms the importance of the publicly-funded universal education opportunity and highlights work underway and strategies for working together to implement change. Our work is based on the core value statement: Strengthening our public schools is the best way to ensure our children's future success and our country's prosperity.

Our key messages are:

• All children have the right to a public education that prepares them for college, careers and citizenship.

• Quality public schools build the knowledge and skills young people need to succeed in a global knowledge-based world.

• Communities are stronger and schools are better when we all work together to support public education.

Our local public schools and the professionals who work in them are our greatest historic asset. Join us in moving the conversation beyond pointing fingers to find fault to working together to ensure that all our children have the future they deserve.

Views expressed in this post are strictly those of the author and do not reflect the endorsement of the Learning First Alliance or any of its members.

Posted by Learning First Alliance at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend