Oath for athletes, parents and coaches

Oath for athletes, parents and coaches

By Mike MuldoonStaff Writer

Teachers, coaches, parents, classmates and entire towns do a tremendous disservice by giving a star athlete special treatment.

True story. After playing big-time college football, the most popular, best-looking kid in my high school class turned into a drug addict who robbed the unsuspecting, aging parents of his friends and lived under a bridge.

I always wondered if his receiving kid-glove treatment due to his athletic prowess was the reason.

If the kid deserves to be failed, fail him. If he deserves to be suspended, suspend him. If he deserves to be arrested, arrest him.

Here is some advice for athletes, coaches and administrators worth keeping in mind this school year:

1. From the ages of 12 to 18, there is nothing more important than being popular. From the ages of 19 to 99, there is nothing less important than having been popular from 12 to 18.
2. If all your friends are athletes, you are shallow.
3. A lot of middle-aged guys who can’t play ball with their kids today thought they were doing the right thing playing with pain. Listen to your body.
4. A real athlete never misses a game or a practice for a dance, a concert or Senior Skip Day.
5. Coaches Award winners tend to be more successful in life than team MVPs.
6. Humility is a virtue. False humility makes you a bore.
7. Your coach doesn’t have it in for you. Repeat, your coach doesn’t have it in for you.
8. Always give a kid a second chance.
9. Be a three-sport athlete. The number of athletes who do one sport year-round who blow out their knees or quit from burnout is frightening. Ask any college coach, they prefer three-sport athletes.
10. It is easier to get into an Ivy League school than to earn a full boat. And that’s a fact.
11. Go out of your way to befriend the fat kid, the kid with acne problems or the kid with the troubled home life.
12. Ted Williams was dead wrong. The toughest thing in sports isn’t hitting a baseball. It’s being a parent of an athlete. Good parents shut their mouths, stay glued to their seats and let the players play, the coaches coach and the officials officiate.
13. You won’t always be successful, but give it your best shot to spare your child a heap of embarrassment.
14. Forget everything your AAU or travel team coach taught you.
15. No matter how unsatisfying the season may have been for you, never skip the team banquet; it’s the ultimate slap in the face to your teammates and coaches.
16. Play for the love of the game and only the love of the game.
17. You’re not going to make the pros. You have a far better chance of becoming a brain surgeon.
18. Any coach who swears too much is a lousy coach and an even worse role model.
19. The undersized benchwarmer who doesn’t miss practice in four years should be more admired than the all-scholastic quarterback who can barely fit his head in his helmet.
20. You’ll never regret having said no to alcohol, drugs and sex in high school.
21. Tattoos make you look like a punk.
22. Right, wrong or indifferent, colleges covet scholar-athletes. A star athlete with 1,250 on his SATs with a 3.6 GPA can go to the Ivy Leagues. A regular student with those grades would be laughed out of any Ivy League admissions department.
23. Any coach or athletic director who drones on about “kids nowadays” should get out of the business. Same goes for those whining about being underpaid.
24. If a coach positively affected your life, write him/her a thank-you note. You’ll have a friend for life.
25. You have the rest of your life to get a job.
26. If your coach instructs you to cheapshot an opponent, quit the team immediately.
27. Treat the team manager with the same respect as the star of the team.
28. A coach who makes fun of a boy’s weight is a boor. A coach who makes fun of a girl’s weight is dangerous.
29. Any coach/athletic director who voluntarily hosts invitational events is a gem.
30. Any athletic director who doesn’t have rosters for the fans for state tourney games isn’t doing his job.
31. Administrators must stand up to meddlesome parents or it will be a slippery slide to chaos.
32. The size of your nose, biceps or breasts is inconsequential to anybody who truly cares about you.
33. A good captain will lead his team to a Super Bowl title. A great one will take a stand against hazing.
34. It’s never too late to change.
35. A loss should hurt like hell. Getting thrown out of a game should hurt even more.
36. Steroids make you a bigger athlete and a smaller person.
37. Always feed the benchwarmer the ball at the end of a blowout.
38. Don’t listen to the coach who cut you. Work like the dickens and shock the world next year.
39. Let the games begin.

Email Michael Muldoon at mmuldoon@eagletribune.com.

Making big dreams possible with small budgets using virtualization technologies

The Trifecta for Transforming Education: Making big dreams possible with small budgets using virtualization technologies Introduction Technology is at its best when it facilitates communica-tion, engagement, interaction and understanding. This was brought to life by Karen Cator, director of the Federal Office of Education Technology, when she toured the Mooresville Graded School District in Mooresville, N.C., in 2011. Cator explains that she was blown away by how the district has achieved a balance between technological advancement and academic goals: “In several classrooms, I couldn’t tell where the front of the classroom was. On one side of the room was an inter- active whiteboard; on another side, a regular whiteboard; and the teacher’s desk was on a third side. The whole space was a learning environment, and the technology was just part of the infrastructure. In a high school class, students had chosen books and were presenting to class- mates their digital visual representation of the theme of the book. As they watched one another’s presentations, they were entertained, yet the meaning of ‘theme’ was com- pletely clear, and they were being exposed to a variety of literature. Although the subject wasn’t related to technol- ogy, technology facilitated communication, engagement, interaction and understanding.”1 Across the nation, districts strive to achieve this type of balance. However, finding the path to this balance is difficult. Increasing complexity and external demands in the world of academia also interfere. Most districts must balance technology needs with academic goals — two demands that are all-too-frequently at odds with each other: budget limitations on the one hand and meeting performance standards and state and federal mandates on the other. In many districts, administrators, officials and parents often see technology as a panacea: “Invest in the latest and greatest solutions and all of the challenges will disappear.” Most of the time, however, technology alone doesn’t save the day. That’s because technology isn’t a magic elixir. Instead, most districts must balance technology needs with academic goals — two demands that are all-too-frequently at odds with each other: budget limitations on the one hand, and meeting performance standards and state and fed- eral mandates on the other. This constant push-and-pull can be exhausting even for districts with the resources (and wherewithal) to get creative with solutions. But there is at least one path toward a coherent approach — an approach that addresses the complexities in the world of academic technology and, at the same time, highlights some of the best trends in computing today. The strategy takes into account curricular and technology limits, yet strives to achieve more with less. It’s flexible, scalable and eminently replicable in districts and schools of every size. The solution has three parts. We call it the trifecta. Explaining the Trifecta Good things come in threes. The Holy Trinity. The Three Stooges. The three Great Pyramids at Giza. Academic technology is no different. In order to transform education with technology, in order to deliver a more compelling and cost-effective approach to academic IT, schools and school

districts must embrace a tripartite strategy — a trifecta, if you will. These three calls to action empower technolo- gists to overcome some of the challenges facing aca- demic computing today. They are: • Blending forms of learning • Looking for small wins that can blaze a path forward  • Facilitating interactions and collaboration In today’s world, the trifecta is about putting technology to its best use. This paper will describe the trifecta in more detail and provide a few examples where this is already happening. It will also explain how districts can take advantage of advances in virtualization technology to achieve this three-part strategy and make big dreams hap- pen on small budgets. The Role of Technology in Blended Learning For the better part of the last decade, instruction at the K-12 level (and, in many cases, beyond) has come in two major flavors: face-to-face and online. Over the last few years, however, a new model has emerged — a model that combines both traditional flavors into a new format that comprises both. This model, appropriately dubbed “blended learning,” incorporates in-person lessons, online lessons, chat and Web-enhanced lectures — extending the boundaries of the classroom into the Internet environ- ment and beyond. Administrators are able to offer more and varied resources, teachers are able to reach students with different experiences and engagement levels, and students are given more ways to learn and explore. Achieving true blended learning is more challenging than it seems and requires thoughtful and careful application of technology in order to work. One of the challenges is finding the right balance. Often, district administrators mistake “blended” for simply moving learning online. It’s more nuanced than that. District leaders should ask themselves how much they want technology to facilitate learning, in what subjects, and what percentage of the curriculum online learning should represent. Furthermore, an ideal blended learning environment stems from a 1:1 computing environment where each student has access to a personal device for self-paced, personalized instruction to supplement classroom learning. Unfortunately, many students still lack access to computing at home and according to Broadband.gov, approximately 100 million Americans (teachers and students included) still do not have broadband at home, making access to digital content difficult. MYTH Tablets Are the Ultimate PC Today Perception: Tablet computers, with their sleek form-factors and lightning-fast computing power, are the ultimate PC for the K-12 environment. Reality: The reality of tablet computing is more measured and balanced. Tablets are new and exciting, they capture the imagination of both students and teachers, and enable new use cases and collaboration than were previously possible. The flip side is that there are limitations. The emphasis on the touch screen and the lack of peripherals make them better for consuming information rather than creating content. Other issues are the limited curriculum and applications built specifically for tablet computing, application compatibility for existing needs, and two that are often overlooked: a lack of sufficient network infrastructure and a limited ability to centrally manage. At best, these issues create hidden (or not so hidden) costs that can severely undermine deployments. At worst, these limitations can completely derail technology initiatives. The bottom line: Tablets aren’t the sole solution to learning challenges. For some districts and schools, the high acquisition cost and the inability to leverage existing PCs and equipment may limit tablet computing for quite some time. A successful blended learning approach is facilitated by technology, but technology does not define blended learning. An appropriate balance must be found to seamlessly blend technology into daily curriculum. Professional development for teachers must also be included to encourage adoption and build commitment and confidence. When districts properly balance these initiatives, however, the learning benefits follow as stud- ies have shown this type of blended approach achieves the best academic results.2
In a perfect world, every school district across the country would have limitless financial resources to procure all of the latest and greatest technology and achieve access equity overnight. In reality, however, IT departments struggle to operate within budgetary constraints and restrictions, making it difficult to leverage technology to re-engineer the infrastructure with any degree of consistency or urgency. Limited IT staffing also makes large deployments and upgrade cycles extremely challenging. The fact is that budgets are and likely always will be tight. Put simply, the current climate generally prohibits the notion of transforming everything all at once. Instead, encourage small wins that can align with broader rollouts later. Since attempting wholesale adoption runs headfirst into budget constraints — as well as the usual problems associated with any large-scale and long transformation — small wins can be the basis of accelerat- ing honest-to-goodness change. Small wins provide the opportunity to “prove the point” and help focus efforts and identify the strongest long-term directions. They can also help districts and schools develop more entrepre- neurial approaches and spirit; publicizing the results of these efforts can encourage faster progress overall. The key to technology adoption in the current environment is cost-effective decision-making and looking for short-term successes. Identify and support small wins that advance sustained benefits for users and IT staff. Most importantly, look for the wins that can scale to ben- efit more of your constituents now and in the future. If choices don’t deliver more computing seats per budget dollar, they’re not choices a district should be making in the first place. MYTH: Consumerization Transforms Everything Easily Perception: The quicker your IT department overhauls the infrastructure with the latest and greatest tool from Vendor X, the better off your district’s IT department will be. Reality: Don’t believe the hype; just because Vendor X says its new tool is great, it doesn’t mean it is or that it will have the promised impact within your environment — in the timeframe and with the budget available. Especially in a tight budgetary climate, the best strategy for technology adoption is looking for technologies where you can demonstrate the value quickly and where there is short-term value and immediate cost-effectiveness. At the end of the day, it’s important to invest in technology that advances the curriculum and student performance, not technology that might satisfy a long-term vision or for technology’s sake itself. In short, districts shouldn’t succumb to political pressure for a complete fix-all — the best choices will demonstrate innovative uses of the technology, not just showcase innovative technologies. Facilitating Interactions and Collaboration For the first time in the history of computing, young people are interacting predominantly through technology. They Facebook. They Tweet. They text. And they expect to use these tools not just with classmates, but with teachers and even their parents. In order for academic technologies to stay relevant among the most critical user
base, technologies should be social in nature and facili- tate interactions and collaboration. Student-facing technologies need to establish an environment that students themselves are going to use and an environment in which teachers, aides, tutors and even administrators can participate as well. This can be a double-edged sword. At its best, technol- ogy that facilitates interactions and collaboration leads to more teamwork, group learning and interactive understanding of big-picture concepts and themes. At its worst, such technology can make it easier for students to cheat and exacerbate the differences between the haves and have- nots and between those with expertise and those without. Ubiquity is paramount when it comes to collaborative technologies; students will not embrace them as routine unless the technologies are everywhere. This, of course, comes back to the issue of access; the more prevalent and accessible the technologies are, the more likely it is that students will use them and actually interact with each other. Teachers can’t facilitate collaboration in the class- room and beyond when their students don’t have conve- nient and consistent access to computing. Because of this, delivering access should have priority over having the latest and greatest technology when it comes to learning. When access is widespread, it facilitates collaborations such as students in New York and California teaming up with students in India and China. It is also common for several schools in a district to collabo- rate on a project together, or for a student who is excelling in a particular subject to assist students at neighborhood schools that may be struggling with the material. Unlike in the past, the appropriate technology makes this possible regardless of the distance. How Districts Can Achieve the Trifecta On paper, the trifecta might seem like a tall order. Blended learning! Small wins in the face of challenging constraints! Embracing technologies that facilitate collaboration! Many academic technologists would be satisfied accomplishing even a part of one of these goals in a fiscal year, much less all three. That’s why virtualization is such a revolutionary concept. Virtualization, a shared computing strategy that maximizes efficiency by centralizing computing on higher performance servers that are easier to manage, is one way to fulfill all three requirements of the trifecta. It achieves more with less. It simplifies management. It provides an environment for blended learning and collaborative technology. It also facilitates small wins with a technology that can evolve and scale. Most important, virtualization enables big dreams with much lower budgets than otherwise possible. Put simply, it is a critical strategy for transforming education with technology. The effort to transform a district’s technology infrastructure through virtualization can come from an individual school or a district — with the critical mass, other requisite elements such as next-generation blended learning and teacher and administrator training will follow quickly. Following are examples of a district and school that have utilized desktop virtualization to transform education for the better for their students.
St. Johns County School District Goes Virtual Three years ago, technologists at St. Johns County School District in Florida were stumped. New state mandates required computer-based assessments, and the district needed to invest in new equipment quickly and effortlessly to make sure they could comply. This time around, however, Chris Petrello, assistant director of technology support, didn’t want to purchase traditional PCs. He wanted something different. The solution: virtual machines. Overnight, this technology transformed St. Johns’ comput- ing infrastructure, re-creating computer labs and practically tripling the number of machines available for end user use. This lecture style undoubtedly played a role in St. Johns’ distinction as the top-performing school district (by assess- ment scores, of course) in Florida for 2011. Still, the technologist warns that virtualization, much like technology itself, isn’t a cure-all. While the new technology has made management easier, it also has required St. Johns to retrain IT staff to support a host of new programs on the virtualized machines. Although virtualized machines lack the same computing power that traditional PCs do, they are cheaper, require less energy to operate, and provide more than enough power for student learning and experimentation.3 Staying Flexible at the Oakland School for the Arts In 2009, Director of Technology David Smith — the sole overseer of the IT operation for the Oakland School for the Arts — decided the school needed a different approach to its 1:1 laptop program that it had embraced for years. He completed an extensive academic computing needs assessment and compiled a set of technology requirements. Once he had determined the requirements, he examined the technology landscape and evalu- ated the options which were in line with expected budgetary constraints. “Very quickly I determined that the technology underlining virtual desktop infra- structure (VDI) had matured to the point that I believed it was suf- The purchase also saved quite a bit of money; instead of paying between $600 and $1,000 per unit, the district nabbed the virtual units for about $375 a piece. “Our goal was to get the most out of the technology,” he says. “I think we managed that well.” Petrello notes that the technology has facilitated a unique form of blended learning called “flipped” lectures. Instead of lecturing and then giving students homework to complete at home, educators are requesting (through the CMS) that students complete assignments before class and are then teaching to those assignments during the face-to-face classes. ficient to handle our short and longer-term academic student technology requirements,” Smith says. Smith selected the virtual solution for four basic reasons: • It was fiscally viable and responsible. • It could be supported with a staff of one. • It would enhance what the school already did educationally. • It was operationally effective. Now that the technology has been implemented and faculty members have been trained on how to use it, Smith says for the most part, he just sits back and lets educators do their thing.

“I just make sure that the technology is flexible enough to support whatever it is the teachers want to do,” he says, noting that some educators alternate between in-class and online sessions, while others stick mostly to one format for the duration of the year.

One challenge Smith recently discovered was the con- tinual demand: “I can rarely get maintenance done during school hours because I can’t get them out of student hands.”

Smith hails the technology for its ease of use and
ease of deployment, as well as its flexibility. Management — of the devices and of the content on them — has also been easy.

He adds that introducing new software in response to student demand is another area in which the system has exceeded expectations, over and over again.

“Deploying new features is another area in which the technology has served me well,” he explains. “At the end of [2011], a student requested software for photo-editing, by that afternoon we had installed an open source solution.”

Currently, as part of an ongoing pilot program, Smith says the school has 50 thin clients in a series of rooms that the faculty can reserve for the students. Ultimately, he says, he hopes to have 10 to 15 machines in every academic classroom, which is now much more within reach with the new economics afforded by the virtual desktop solution.4

Conclusion

As the world of academic computing gets more complex, academic technologists and district administra- tors need a coherent and comprehensive approach to rec- onciling dwindling budgets and skyrocketing needs. The answer is a three-part strategy of blended learning, incre- mental technology adoption and collaborative solutions.

Acknowledgements

Together, this approach helps districts achieve more with less, prioritizing curricular requirements and access equity over hype and a quick fix. It’s about achieving big dreams with small budgets. And it works.

Resources

NComputing Education

www.ncomputing.com/education

“Transforming Education with Technology”

www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb11/ vol68/num05/Transforming-Education-with-Technology.aspx

“The Educator’s Technology Dilemma: Providing more students with greater access to leading-edge technology under declining budgets” http://marketing.ncomputing.com/EducationWhitepaper.html

“Technology Counts 2012,” Education Week special section

www.edweek.org/ew/toc/2012/03/15/index.html

Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning

http://kpk12.com

Endnotes:

1. Scherer, Marge. “Transforming Education with Technology: A Conversation with Karen Cator.” Educational Leadership Feb. 2011:16-21.

2. www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based- practices/finalreport.pdf

3. Center for Digital Education interview with Chris Petrello conducted on April 10, 2012.

4. Center for Digital Education interview with David Smith conducted on March 29, 2012

Matt Villano is a writer and editor based in Healdsburg, Calif. He has served as senior contribut- ing editor for Campus Technology magazine since 2005. He also covers a variety of other subjects – including travel, parenting and business — for publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Parenting and Entrepreneur.

Horace Mann League Honors Warner, Payzant at Luncheon

At the Horace Mann League of the USA’s annual meeting on Friday, two major awards will be presented. 

U,.S. Senator Mark Warner, Virginia

Outstanding Friend of Public Education: This will be presented to U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. Warner was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2008, and he serves on the Senate Banking, Budget, Commerce and Intelligence committees. He has been a champion for public education as a senator and as Virginia governor.

Tom Payzant and Gary Mrarx

Outstanding Public Educator: This award will be presented to Thomas Payzant, who recently retired as a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Prior, he served as superintendent of the Boston Public Schools and the San Diego Unified Schools and was appointed by President Clinton as assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education at the U.S. Department of Education. Payzant just completed a book, Urban and District School Leadership, published by Jossey-Bass.

Joe Hairston, Charles Fowler, and Mark Edwards

The Horace Mann League also presents the Ambassador Award to those members who contribute to the growth of the membership. This year’s Ambassador awardees are: Brent Clark, Illinois; Mark Edwards, North Carolina; Charles Fowler, New Hampshire; Joe Hairston, Maryland; Eric King, Illinois; Carol Choye, New Jersey; and James Harvey, Washington.

The Horace Mann League Board Members (present at the Winter Board Meeting
front: James Harvey, Evelyn Holman, Joe Hairston, and Carol Choye
back: Stan Olson, Jack McKay, Gary Marx, Charles Fowler, Spike Jorgensen, Steve Rasmussen,
and Steven Ladd

The league, a pro-public education advocacy organization, is holding its awards luncheon in conjunction with the AASA national conference in Los Angeles.

Mooresville’s Miracle Launched by Community, Edwards Says

by Francesca Martens

Mark Edwards, superintendent in Mooresville,
 N.C., spoke at an AASA  conference session on
 digital conversion for student achievement.

In a school The New York Times referred to as the “de facto national model” for K-12 technology deployments, it may be surprising digital technologies come last.

“If the focus is on the devices, it’s misunderstood,” Mark Edwards, superintendent of the Mooresville, N.C., Graded School District, told attendees at his AASA conference session Friday on digital conversion for student achievement.

In order for an overarching initiative like Mooresville’s to work, it must be buttressed by a student-centered school and an engaged and informed community, said Edwards, who was named one day earlier the 2013 National Superintendent of the Year.

When Edwards began to rally support for the initiative at Mooresville five years ago, he started by holding community forums and meetings and asking attendees, asking anyone who would listen, “What do we want for the future of our children?” The answer, Edwards convinced them, lay in giving children the digital resources that a 21^st century workplace would require.

“We are poverty stricken in understanding the importance of professional development in education,” Edwards stated before citing statistics in which 90 percent of current high school students in the United States said the work they did at school had no relevance to their lives or their future. “We need students doing things that matter to them outside.”

With this idea in mind, Edwards embarked on an ambitious goal to digitalize his entire school district in spite of it being working class and with average funding.

In North Carolina, Mooresville is one of the lowest-funded districts -- 108^th out of 115 districts.

“If we can afford it, anyone can,” Edwards poignantly joked before suggesting attendees refer to his new book, Every Child, Every Day, in which he devoted an entire chapter to the process of financing Mooresville’s technological initiative.

All students from K-12 were given laptops, provided with 24/7 online content and wireless internet was made ubiquitous within the school as well as other community buildings in Mooresville such as libraries and community centers.

Five years after the initiative begun, the results are obvious to all who visit the school.

“When visitors to the school asked the 3rd-grade students how they’re doing, they said, ‘Let me show you how I’m doing,’ and they pulled it [a progress report] up on their laptops and said, ‘Okay, what do you want to know, math, reading or science?’

These students, the superintendent claimed, are designing their trajectory. They see their work in school as part of their culture.

In order to achieve this, Mooresville shifted from a traditional teacher-centered model to a student-centered one that prioritizes the children’s material, intellectual and emotional needs.

“Children need to have a sense of care and love,” Edwards expressed. However, Mooresville’s student-centered policy does not mean exclusion for the adults.

In the Mooresville schools, the adults are integral in the success of the program. “Competency is evolution,” Edwards stressed. “We have started doctoral cohorts, master cohorts and summer conferences . . . they [teachers and staff] have learning throughout the year.”

“We have an ‘All In’” policy where every adult and student counts and is counted on in a major way,” Edwards shared and that seems to be the key to creating an educational model the rest of the nation is eager to follow.

Darling-Hammond: Expect Ongoing Churning of Schools

Linda Darling-Hammond, a distinguished long-time public education researcher, was the keynote speaker at the 2nd General Session of AASA's 2013 National Conference on Education.

by Scott LaFee

The 19^th century education advocate Horace Mann once famously described universal public schooling as “the great invention,” though he likely wouldn’t recognize it today. The great invention has been re-invented many times over the years. It’s in the process of being re-invented again.

Some of the implications on the constant churning in public schooling were laid out in Friday afternoon’s 2^nd General Session by keynote speaker Linda Darling-Hammond, a distinguished professor of education at Stanford University and long-time public education researcher.

Part of what’s pushing that process of late is the Common Core State Standards, an initiative to establish a clear, consistent understanding of what students are expected to learn -- no matter where they live. It’s an admittedly broad and bold ambition, with profound implications for not just what students are taught, but how teachers teach and how both students and teachers are assessed and evaluated.

Everything has changed, Darling-Hammond said. Everything is changing. In 1900, just 5 percent of jobs were knowledge-based. In 2000, it was 70 percent, requiring schools to produce graduates with high-order skills -- the ability to think critically, to problem-solve, to communicate and collaborate.

Recent education reform efforts haven’t necessarily produced sufficient numbers of students with these 21^st century skills, she said. For example, No Child Left Behind had noble goals, but unintended effects. In its singular pursuit of accountable high achievement, Darling-Hammond asserted that NCLB effectively narrowed the curriculum, chased teachers from high-need schools and excluded low-scoring students. Many students were no better equipped for modern-day careers and lives than if they had come from one of Horace Mann’s classrooms.

The Common Core effort is an attempt to remedy the situation. Rather than provide an education “a mile wide and inch deep,” Darling-Hammond said Common Core standards are “fewer, higher and deeper.”

“Much of what students are going to deal with in life involves knowledge and technologies not yet known,” she said. Rather than teach them about static, “multiple-choice world,” Darling-Hammond said current and future students must “learn to learn.”

Exactly what that means in contemporary classrooms remains to be determined. It’s a work-in-progress in schools and districts across the country. But whatever Common Core curricula results, Darling-Hammond said it will require comparable changes in pedagogy and how teachers are supported.

A key, she added, will be expansive and sustained professional development that focuses upon specific curricula, real problems of practice and how to share new learning and ideas among all teachers.

“The best schools are collegial and collaborative,” she said. “Good teaching is a team effort.”

Re-inventing the curricula will require re-inventing how teachers are evaluated. Future evaluations will need to integrate both student outcomes with teacher practices. On the other hand, she said, they probably should not include value-added measures – at least not yet.

Value-added measures is a method of teacher evaluation that measures the teacher's contribution in a given year by comparing current school year test scores of their students to the scores of those same students in the previous school year, as well as to other students in the same grade.

“VAM is conceptually a good idea,” Darling-Hammond said, but the current metrics based on state tests are “much more unstable, unreliable and biased than we thought a few years ago. Teachers who are ranked at the top one year are ranked at the bottom the next, then back at the top. VAM scares off good teachers and undermines smart decision-making.”

Fixing VAM – indeed fixing all of education’s problems and challenges – requires educators to actively participate in defining education policy, to not leave it entirely to politicians and outsiders, Darling-Hammond declared.

“As administrators and school leaders,” she told the crowd, “you can be formers (of policy, of new ideas, of a new education system). To quote Horace Mann, ‘One former is worth a 1,000 reformers.’”

(Scott LaFee, a writer with the University of California San Diego Health Science Center, is a reporter for AASA’s Conference Daily Online.)