sprees january newsletter

SPREES DEBUT EVENT: TEACHING NEEDS TO REMAIN A PROFESSION [DISH DAILY - JANET RAE-DUPREE] JANUARY 2014 “Teaching is a profession that makes all other professions possible,” defends Rachel Lotan. We need to step up both the way we train tomorrow’s teachers and the level of status we give them in society, agreed speakers at the debut event for the Stanford Pre-Education Society (SPREES) on Tuesday night. The discussion centered around attracting the most talented students into careers in education – particularly teaching. SPREES Founder and President Julia Quintero moderated a group of four panelists at Cemex Auditorium. SPREES is a pre-education society for Stanford students pursuing a career in education – the newly minted organization is gearing up for a strong year ahead, starting with yesterday’s panel. John Hennessy, Claude Steele, Michael Kirst and Rachel Lotan talked about how to attract the best and the brightest college students into teaching. First and foremost, they agreed, teaching must be recognized as a profession and not just a job. “Teaching is the profession that makes all professions possible,” noted Lotan, director of the Stanford Teacher Education Program, or STEP, which oversees clinical programs for the Graduate School of Education. “Teaching is a profession. I’m sad that I have to defend that.” Stanford President John Hennessy referred to the need to “re-professionalize” teaching. He noted that most of today’s American teachers come from the bottom one-third of their college classes, while teachers internationally largely come from the top one-third of college students. Low salaries are a big part of the problem, he said, particularly when it comes to the most disadvantaged school districts. Because the poorest districts pay the least, teachers with the least experience and preparation end up assigned to the districts with the greatest challenges. Michael Kirst, President of the California State Board of Education, said that California legislators should have stripped away the complex set of laws put in place before teachers were allowed to create unions in 1975. Claude Steele, Dean of the Graduate School of Education, said that there is a “righteous urgency” to improving both America’s public education system and the way it trains its teachers. “The U.S. can become a world leader in educating its citizens,” he said. To view this article, visit http://bit.ly/1aTuhCZ CLAUDE STEELE Get Involved with SPREES | SPREES.STANFORD.EDU | [email protected] If you missed our debut event, you can still watch it here: http://bit.ly/19UcvDj Highlights: http://bit.ly/1lrpxKc

sprees january newsletter

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