Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University has been appointed chair of California’s Teacher Credentialing Commission.
Darling-Hammond is one of the nation’s leading scholars on the subject of the teaching profession and an outspoken critic of using test scores to evaluate teachers.
I know Linda very well. This is great news for educators in California.
California is definitely an outlier in the world of corporate reform.
Governor Jerry Brown fought for a tax increase to reverse some of the damaging budget cuts under his predecessor.
He appointed a strong state board committed to public education and ousted its charter school majority.
Superintendent of Schools Tom Torlakson is an experienced educator and no ally of the corporate reformers.
And now Linda D-H is running the TCC.
On the down side, California has Michelle Rhee in Sacramento, The Broad Foundation in Los Angeles, and the NewSchools Venture Fund, all of which have vast millions to promote privatization. But they don’t own the state.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Wonderful! Such a relief to hear positive news in the drumbeat of difficulties and setbacks. There is hope.
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Diane,
You don’t see any conflict of interest or reason to worry regarding D-H’s deep involvement with the Common Core assessment consortium she heads? She’s lost a lot of credibility in my eyes the last four years.
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Linda is a person of great personal integrity. You can disagree about her role in the development of Common Core assessments, but you have to be thrilled that she is in charge of setting standards for entry into the teaching profession in California.
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See N. Wilson for a total destruction of the concept of educational standards.
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Great news. I look forward to LDH vs MR and Broad.
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The most uplifted and hopeful news to date!!!!
________________________________
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Broad et al don’t just own the state they own the country. Last year Broad, Gates and the Walton Foundation placed over 47% of the superintendents in the U.S. last year alone. People need to have their facts straight. Michelle Rhee gave up custody of her own children and was a failed teacher and yet after only three years of being a failed teacher the big money came in behind her to destroy teachers due process rights. LAUSD is owned lock, stock and barrel by Gates, Broad and the Walton Foundation. The superintendent Deasy quit his job in Prince Georges County one week after the story on his phony PHD came out. One week after he quits he is hired by the Gates Foundation and one year after that he is at LAUSD. What do you consider the ethics of the Gates Foundation? In California it is against the law for a teacher to lose their credential unless they are convicted of a crime or declared insane by a court. Now what happens is that school districts break the law by not following the proper legal process and many teachers are falsely accused of crimes such as child abuse. At the California State Board of Education at the last meeting I caught the staff lying to the Board on special education and on the accountability of charter schools. All you have to do is read the latest DOE OIG report on the total lack of accountability of charter schools in Florida, Arizona and California with LAUSD being a listed district. LAUSD has over 250 charter schools. This charter school report is DOE-OIG/A02L0002. In the LAUSD 2012-13 superintendents budget special education is listed at 4.7%. The national average is 12-13%. When I called the Chanda Smith court appointed Federal Consent Decree Monitor he told me LAUSD special education was 11.47%. I asked him where he obtained his data and he told me from the LAUSD data base. How can it be 4.7% and 11.47% from the same data base? This is a 250% difference. How is the state number 2-3% below the national average? Is there something mystical in California?
As a friend of mines grandfather taught him “I hear real good, but I see a whole lot better.”
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I finally had a true smile today…all because I was not wearing my glasses while trying to read this post. Instead of seeing “On the down side, California has Michelle Rhee in Sacramento, The Broad Foundation in Los Angeles, and the NewSchools Venture Fund…”, I thought it said NewSchools Vulture Fund. How apropos!
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I love New Schools Vulture Fund as I like what I call Students Last. They both fit to the tee.
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Linda Darling-Hammond quoted in MO’s Commissioner of Ed 5-1-13 statement.
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Commissioner of Education Chris L. Nicastro has issued the following statement:
Statement from Commissioner of Education Chris L. Nicastro: Missouri Department of Education Applauds Thoughtful District and State Implementation of Common Core
Since the 2010 adoption of grades K-12 English language arts and mathematics Common Core State Standards, Missouri districts have been preparing for the transition to full implementation in school year 2014-2015. Yesterday’s speech delivered by AFT President Randi Weingarten speaks to Missouri’s thoughtful approach.
While standards aren’t piloted, instruments used to measure full implementation are. Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary officials agree that such assessments should be piloted before they are used for accountability. This spring, 203 Missouri school districts participated in an assessment pilot. At a minimum, 60 percent of Missouri districts will participate in a field test next year. In the meantime, the current Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) tests are still in place and are used for accountability.
This is not the first time that Missouri has revised its standards or changed its assessments. Missouri has successfully transitioned through changes over the years and has learned various strategies along the way.
We agree with Linda Darling-Hammond that “… schools and teachers need time and resources to get the new standards right.” This is why Missouri worked so hard to get our crosswalk, training webinars, model curriculum and other tools in place three years ago. Districts have done an excellent job providing professional development opportunities to teachers to support the changes in instruction necessary to fully address the new standards. They are well into their implementation and, in some cases, have fully transitioned to the Common Core.
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