A cornerstone of today’s education reform movement is the generation, analysis, and use of data to improve instruction and decision-making at all levels— the classroom, school, and district. This Issue Brief focuses on efforts in Lee County, FL to embrace student input to instructional goal setting and practices.

These strategies are an outgrowth of collaboration among the School District of Lee County, the Foundation for Lee County Public Schools, and the Teachers Association of Lee County (FL). They have been endorsed by union leaders, front-line educators, and district and school administrators, and demonstrate the convergence of “bottom-up” and “top-down” input to improving instructional effectiveness, a signature feature of the NEA Foundation Closing the Achievement Gaps Initiative, where teachers unions, districts, and community members work together to ensure a high quality education for all students.

We urge you to read this issue brief and to share it broadly. Questions or ideas? Please let me know.

Sincerely,

Harriet Sanford

President & CEO, The NEA Foundation

From flowers and new growth to long sunny days and no winter coats, spring is all about closing one chapter and starting another. At schools everywhere, it means graduation and commencement speeches.

How are you preparing to say goodbye to your students?

Share your words of advice below on how you'll help prepare them for the road ahead.

As a first generation college student from Albany, New York, I had a limited concept of what to expect from college beyond my visits. I had no idea of how my world was about to open up in unexpected ways. During my freshman year, I met Dr. Sayce, a professor who challenged me to see the world from a broader perspective.

His instruction was based on an analytical approach to information which made us think, rather than consume without questioning. He was provocative and occasionally entertaining.

He taught us to embrace the unexpected. If we kept our minds open, we could understand other perspectives, cultures and beliefs. By the end of the second semester, I was thinking, and seeing, with new energy. College became an empowering place. Eventually, I began to view the world as a canvas for exploration. Dr. Sayce inherited a student and planted the seed for a global thinker.

Today, in recognition of Teacher Appreciation Week, I’d like to thank my teacher, Dr. Sayce.

 - Harriet Sanford, President & CEO, The NEA Foundation

Automation of jobs. Globalization. Demographic shifts. New skill demands. These forces are necessitating that students learn differently in order to thrive in the interconnected world. But, how does that happen?

In June, 36 award-winning educators will travel to Brazil on a continuation of their learning journey as the NEA Foundation’s Pearson Foundation Global Learning Fellows. The fellowship is a professional development opportunity designed to help educators acquire the necessary skills they and their students will need to be successful in the interconnected global economy.

Educators will visit schools in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazilwhere they will observe classroom instruction and interact with teachers and administrators while gaining insights on education polices at the local , state, and national level.  In between, they’ll have the chance to investigate Brazil’s rich historical and cultural landmarks.  

But the fellowship is much more than just a trip abroad! Fellows have been rigorously preparing with in-depth readings, webinars, and discussions on global competency and content covering all aspects of Brazilian life. In February, a two-day professional development workshop in Washington, DC placed them in front of country experts and global competency leaders. Each fellow also received basic Portuguese language training courtesy of Rosetta Stone. (Do you know how to say ‘thank you, teachers!’ in Portuguese? They do!)

Are they ready? We certainly think so.

But the journey doesn’t end when they get home. Once stateside, they will complete lesson, unit, or curriculum plans designed to integrate global competence into their classrooms. These projects will then be shared with educators around the country and around the world through a host of virtual platforms.

Want to learn more about their experiences and observations abroad? Subscribe to our blog to receive their updates from Brazil this June.

Not surprisingly, over the last several months there has been a surge of educators who are pushing back more forcefully on recently mandated and implemented systems of teacher evaluation. I believe they are justified.

Most of these systems fly in the face of accepted notions of professionalism and of overwhelming research evidence. In a recent article on the NEA and the Florida Education Association (FEA) federal lawsuit challenging the evaluation of teachers based on the standardized test scores, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel suggested that the Florida action would not be the last. “There will be others,” he said. “This is the first.” Read the full Education Week article.

Bigger questions are at the core of this suit, and must be answered if significant progress is to be made in the national and federal policy arenas by the teaching profession toward achievement of full professional status.  These questions I believe are captured succinctly in a recent article by Michael Usdan, former president and current senior fellow, Institute for Educational Leadership, and Art Wise, president emeritus of National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, who asks:

“Will teaching and learning be improved through increased regulation, mandated standards, standardized testing of students, and test-based teacher evaluation, as the administration favors, or through more-rigorous selection, development, quality control, and peer oversight of teachers, as favored by the unions? What are the consequences of each approach for what and how teachers teach and students learn?" Read the full Education Week article.

Jal Mehta of the Harvard Graduate School of Education provides a succinct frame for answering these questions:

“Teaching requires a professional model, like we have in medicine, law, engineering, accounting, architecture and many other fields. In these professions, consistency of quality is created less by holding individual practitioners accountable and more by building a body of knowledge, carefully training people in that knowledge, requiring them to show expertise before they become licensed, and then using their professions’ standards to guide their work.” Read the full New York Times article.

The dynamics articulated by Mehta, Usdan, and Wise are precisely those that drive the NEA Foundation’s efforts to build union capacity to co-construct and lead reform and help shape the evolution of local union collaboration with their districts. Enduring education reform necessarily entails greater cooperation with educators and the unions that represent them.

These topics sit at the center of public education policy debates that remain unresolved, at a time when stakes for all our students continue to increase exponentially. From time to time, I will use this blog to share a perspective generated from over eight years of NEA Foundation experience promoting teaching quality and student achievement, and to keep you current on pressing issues that impact the NEA Foundation’s work.

(Photo courtesy of flickr user Ron Cogswell)

Spring has finally sprung, and the school year’s quickly coming to an end. Do you already have a seedling of an idea for next year’s grant project, but need funding to bring it to life? We’ve rounded up some near-term opportunities for you.

Target Early Childhood Reading Grants

• Target Early Childhood Reading Grants promote student literacy by supporting programs such as classroom reading libraries, after-school reading events, and weekend book clubs. Each grant is $2,000. The deadline to apply is April 30, 2013.

Target Arts, Culture & Design in Schools Grants

• Target Arts, Culture & Design in Schools Grants fund in-school arts programs that enhance students' classroom curricula by bringing the arts and culture to schools through performances, workshops, and artist-in-residency programs. Each grant is $2,000. The deadline to apply is April 30, 2013.

ING Unsung Heroes

• The ING Unsung Heroes awards program provides funding to full-time educators, teachers, principals, paraprofessionals, and staff members for effective projects that improve student learning. Grants are $2,000, with awards of $5,000, $10,000, and $25,000 going to the top three projects. The deadline to apply is April 30, 2013.

If you can’t make the April 30 deadlines, you still have time to apply for an NEA Foundation grant by June 1. And don’t forget… We’ll be back next fall with our matching funds for NEA members posting on DonorsChoose.org. Stay tuned to learn more in September!

Ever wonder what grantees accomplish with the $2,000 or $5,000 funding they receive from the NEA Foundation’s Student Achievement or Learning & Leadership grants?

Our most recent Featured Grantee, Amanda Zullo of Saranac Lake, NY, knew she needed to change the way her class worked when she began teaching a multi-grade high school chemistry class. Through her NEA Foundation Student Achievement grant, she obtained a classroom set of “clickers,” a system of handheld devices developed by Mobi that students use to respond to questions posed during class. The system compiles the results and pinpoints which students are struggling to understand key concepts, allowing Zullo to focus on helping exactly who needs it.

“It immediately took the fear factor out of spending a day teaching kids something they may or may not learn from,” she said. Read Amanda Zullo’s full story.

Thinking about applying for a grant? Or just looking for unique learning lessons to replicate?

Our new Grantee Archive provides hundreds of exemplary grant project ideas at your fingertips! Search these projects by most recent, grade level, subject, state, or keyword to discover classroom work or professional development plans worth reinventing.   

"Our Schools Need More Strange Bedfellows"

By Harriet Sanford

President & CEO, The NEA Foundation

“Getting communities more involved with their public schools can lead to strange bedfellows, like the group of motorcyclists that descended upon Littleton Elementary School in Lee County, Fla., this past holiday season.

The North Fort Myers chapter of the Gold Wing Road Riders Association motored onto campus to provide gifts, food, and other holiday assistance to the school's needy families. It was an "above-and-beyond" act of charity, but what's striking is just how the bikers and the school found each other. One of the school's teachers had won an award from the community's independent, non-profit local education foundation -- an award intended not just to honor teachers, but to get as many people in the community as possible to understand the needs faced by schools and the children they serve. ..."

Continue reading on TheHuffington Post.

(L to R: Harriet Sanford, President & CEO of The NEA Foundation; Leslie Nicholas, language arts educator at Wyoming Valley West Middle School in Kingston, PA; Gary Phoebus, President & CEO of NEA Member Benefits)

More than 800 national leaders in education, philanthropy, and business, gathered at the National Building Museum in the nation’s capital on February 8, 2013 to celebrate the best in public education. Through dance, music, and readings, student performers from Lee County, FL— an NEA Foundation funded site— brought to life the essays, poems, and short stories written by their peers and inspired by their teachers.

In addition to the 38 educators honored with the California Casualty Awards for Teaching Excellence, the following top honors were presented.

Leslie Nicholas accepted the evening's top honor: The NEA Member Benefits Award for Teaching Excellence and $25,000.

Kevin Eubanks, former music director of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” son of a music teacher, and proponent of music in the classroom, hosted the evening's event. Eubanks shared the stage with Lee County students to perform the evening’s finale.

Five educators received the Horace Mann Awards for Teaching Excellence and $10,000, making each of them finalists for the evening's top award.

Leslie Nicholas accepts with the evening's top honor: The NEA Member Benefits Award for Teaching Excellence.

Kyle Zimmer, President of First Book, accepts the Security Benefit Corporation Award for Outstanding Service to Public Education on behalf of First Book.

Daniel Leeds, cofounder and board chair of Alliance for Excellent Education, accepts The NEA Foundation Award for Philanthropy in Public Education.

Kevin Eubanks shares the stage with Lee County, FL students to perform the evening’s finale- a tribute to their late teacher, Mr. Skip Perry.

Lee County student performers brought to life the essays, poems, and short stories written by their peers and inspired by their teachers.

"There are things in life that bring pure joy…you know eating your favorite ice cream or seeing your child master a new skill, when just months ago they were certain they’d never learn how. And while each day in my work here at the Foundation I have the privilege of working with educators and union and community partners from across the county, our annual Gala is that one event where it all comes together. It is pure joy…

As I reflect on the last year in the education arena, it has been filled with lots of conversations about the mechanical part of the work of educators: evaluations and student assessments and always something tied to the contract. But a thoughtful observer recently wrote the following which I think captures what educators really care about:

'Between the teachers and the city where they live there exists a contract or an MOU, full of legal obligations on both sides, pay steps, duties and responsibilities, all to be negotiated. But there is a higher, more important contract that requires no lawyers, no arbitration.

It is a contract given, not stated, ironclad and universal. It is written on the smart board, demonstrated in the halls, surrounding student desks and classroom walls. It is a contract automatically renewed each year, forged in love, witnessed daily. It is never up for a discussion or vote. It is unchangeable, immutable. And in classrooms across the country the contract remains, unbroken in life, in death, consisting of only two words: my kids.'

Let those words be gently seared into your brain… what matters most to each educator is: my kids.'

- Harriet Sanford, President & CEO of the NEA Foundation, at the NEA Foundation's 2013 Salute to Excellence in Education Gala.