FIVE ELEMENTS OF A WELL-FUNCTIONING TEACHING-
LEARNING SYSTEM
1) Meaningful learning goals including content and skills needed for success in the 21st century. These high quality standards, curriculum, and assessment would be accomplished at the state level and not by the federal government.
2) Intelligent reciprocal accountability systems, guaranteeing students competent teaching and quality learning opportunities, and means for evaluating and continually improving curriculum, teaching, and school capacity.
Supportive accountability strategies would seek to create a learning system that heightens the probability of good practice by studying and disseminating successes, diagnosing the sources of failure, and applying resources and expertise to enable improvement.
3) Equitable and adequate resources that provide a level playing field for all students and opportunity to achieve learning standards. States and school districts would build an infrastructure that ensures high-quality preparation for all educators and the availability of well-trained educators to all students in all communities. The federal government would provide additional incentives and college scholarships for promising students to enter the profession.
4) Strong professional standards and supports for all educators.
This includes fully subsidized, high quality preparation, mentoring, and professional development throughout the career, with rewards and supports for teachers and principals who devote their careers to serving high-need students.
5)
Schools organized for student and teacher learning.
Schools should be designed to allow teams of professionals to create a coherent
curriculum focused on critical content and skills, reinforced by shared norms and habits of mind, and exhibited through authentic assessments of performance that reflect the ways knowledge is used in the real world.
Linda Darling Hammond, Chapter 9: Policy for Quality and Equality: Toward Genuine School
Reform. The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine
Or Future, New York: Teachers College Press Columbia University, 2010.
