Institutional/Multimedia
Title: Teacher Preparation Hearing: Daniel Fallon Testimony
Summary: Daniel Fallon speaks of a new program called Teachers for a New Era, an initiative that strays from the concept of a single model of teaching standards. It instead stresses pupil-learning, where teachers are evaluated based on their students ability to learn.
Topic: Accrediting all schools of education
Category: Institutional: Government/Multimedia
What is it: Youtube video of a testimony about teacher preparation before the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee Subcommittee on Higher Education on May 17, 2007.
Publication Information: Youtube.com, May 22, 2007
Author: None listed
Location: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUl1vhVWlr8
Accessed: Mar. 14, 2009
Support:
- Daniel Fallon, director of the Program in Higher Education at Carnegie Corporation of New York
- U.S. House Education and Labor Committee, mission is to strengthen middle class America
- Teacher Insurance Annuity Association (TIAA), the first nationally-available pension fund for college teachers
- Varton Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Coroporation
- Teachers for a New Era, initiative to reform teacher education by developing new, superior programs
- James Coleman, sociologist in the 1960′s whose work developed current teaching conceptions
- RAND corporation, a non-profit organization that conducts research in order to re-evaluate policies
Daniel Fallon primarily outlines his new program, Teachers for a New Era, and gives credit to those involved. The majority of his address to the Education and Labor Committee is spent on the logistics of the program and why it will be effective and what is flawed in the way that teachers are educated today.
Audience and Agenda: Fallon’s audience is the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee and Subcommittee for Higher Education and he is appearing to get official recognition for his program.
Usefulness: Fallon’s argument behind Teachers for a New Era is that only way to really measure the worth of a teacher or the education they have received is by evaluating their progress in the classroom. He claims that no one model of curricula or standards will, or should, fit every education school or every teacher. The ideal of the program is that mentoring, and hands-on experience are the best teachers for the education teachers themselves. He finds that the teachers should be taking classes in the science and arts fields so that they may be better equipped to teach not only their specialty, but work together to provide students the best overall education. Lastly, Fallon believes that education schools should be responsible for its graduates for two years after they receive their degree in order to mentor and assure their competence. He stresses repeatedly the only way to find the quality of the teacher is to evaluate them in the classroom by measure of their students. The concept of Teachers for a New Era is completely contrary to the ideals of accreditation agencies, providing a more realistic way of measuring the value of a teacher and his or her education.
Works Cited:
- Script of Daniel Fallon’s testimony: http://www.carnegie.org/pdf/HouseTestimony.05.17.07Fin.pdf
- Teachers for a New Era website: http://www.teachersforanewera.org/
- The “About” page for RAND corporation: http://www.rand.org/about/
- The “About” page for the Committee on Education and Labor: http://edworkforce.house.gov/about/
