Our lack of a national curriculum, national teacher training standards and federal financial support to attract smart young people to the teaching profession all contribute mightily to the mediocre-to-poor performance of American students, year in and year out, on international education assessments.
She both founded the first U.S. Montessori school in Greenwich and sparked local efforts around the country that have led to the establishment of thousands of Montessori-style pre-schools (some linked to K-12 schools, as well), and an American Montessori Society to accredit those it judges to meet its teacher training standards.
NCTQ President Kate Walsh told The New York Times that while many would consider student teaching critical to teacher training, standards in the practice are lacking.
But the best thing about yoga's newness there is that it gives me an opportunity to contribute to setting a higher bar for yoga teacher training standards than those we have here in the U.S. It's an almost-blank slate there.
As well as updating programmes of study, we need better teacher training, higher standards, and continual assessment of what pupils are being taught.
The report measured state programs according to 10 benchmarks, including teacher training, academic standards, class size, staff-child ratios, health and food services, and how closely programs are monitored.
This program includes partners from state and parish government, the local community, museums and school districts and has directly led to the development of the Highland Road Park Observatory, in-service teacher training program, content standards aligned classroom material and new technology for the classroom.
In New York City, Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew has contended that reducing class size will not make a significant difference unless it is accompanied by other reforms, like teacher training, stronger curriculum standards, a longer school day or year and performance contracts for managers like principals and superintendents.
Forty-five states plus the District of Columbia have already signed on to the Common Core Standards (according to the Standards website), commercial publishers are racing to produce materials aligned with them, school districts are re-writing their curricula, testing companies are creating new tests to measure students competence, and teacher training specialists are offering standards workshops.
The Bush administration allowed states to phony-up statistics on everything from graduation rates to student achievement to teacher training and state education standards.
A day after results from new tests showed sharp declines, the schools chancellor, Dennis M. Walcott, attends a teacher training session on new standards with the state education commissioner.
