The teacher voice–or rather, voices

by Kris Amundson on June 21, 2010

in Teacher Quality

Everybody, it seems, has an idea about how to improve the teaching profession. But often, those conversations don’t include teachers. So when Education Sector was planning “Finding the Link: Teacher Evaluation and Professional Development,” we decided to try a different approach.

The panel discussion, to be held on June 30 at 9:30 a.m., will bring together national experts including to discuss the link between evaluation (how are you doing?) and professional development (how can you improve?). You can see more about the panel and register here.

There’s no question that including the “teacher voice” is a challenge. The numbers alone are staggering—there are more than 3 million K-12 teachers, and they are a fiercely opinionated and independent group. In my former life as an elected official, I worked closely with teacher’s unions. I have enormous respect for the work they do. At the same time, I found that when you want to know what’s really going on in classrooms, you also have to talk to individual teachers.

So we are “convening” a second panel in conjunction with the first. Four teachers, all bloggers—will participate in back-channel conversation among the blog and twitter spheres. They’ll give reactions to the panel and ask the first questions. Later, when they have had a chance to write their thoughts on the panel, they will cross-post their reflections on their own blog and on The Quick and the Ed.

The four teachers and their blogs are:

  • Wookie Kim teaches English at the secondary level in the DC Public Schools. Wookie is also a first-year Teach For America DC Region corps member. He reflects on his experience as a DC educator on his blog, ABCDE.
  • Ann-Bailey Lipsett teaches kindergarten and first grade special education at a diverse, full-inclusion elementary school outside of Washington, DC. She has a Master’s in Special Education from the University of Virginia and plans to begin a Special Education Doctorate program at George Washington University in the Fall of 2010. She blogs at Organized Chaos.
  • Dina Strasser has been an educator for 11 years. A former Fulbright Scholar, she currently teaches 7th grade English in upstate New York, after 8 years of teaching English as a Second Language at all levels of education. She blogs at The Line.
  • Tom White has taught third grade in suburban Seattle for 26 years. He is a National Board Certified Teacher and blogs at Stories from School, which is sponsored by The Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession.

    • They are an amazing group of teacher/writers. We are excited to have them share their thoughts on this issue.

    We hope to hear your thoughts as well. There’s still time to sign up to attend. Or, if you aren’t going to be in the Dupont Circle area on June 30, you can watch our on demand video of the panel. In either case, please join the conversation with your own comments (or blog posts).

    Tagged as: Professional Development, Teacher Bloggers, Teacher Evaluation, Teacher Voice

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