[RSCT] Linda Darling-Hammond Responds to Critics

[Monty Neill]

REAL REFORM IN EDUCATION
New York Times Letter-to-the-Editor
December 12, 2008


To the Editor:

I strongly disagree with David Brooks's characterization of my views on a range of education issues as anti-reform (column, Dec. 5). 

Since I entered teaching, I have fought to change the status quo that routinely delivers dysfunctional schools and low-quality teaching to students of color in low-income communities. I have challenged inequalities in financing. I have helped develop new school models through both district-led innovations and charters. And I have worked to create higher standards for both students and teachers, along with assessments that measure critical thinking and performance. 

I sought to amend and reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act to incorporate these kinds of assessments, while preserving its commitment to closing the achievement gap and ensuring quality teachers. I have also fought to overhaul teacher education programs and close weak ones. 

As director of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, I was an early advocate for cultivating and rewarding excellent teachers while dismissing those who, with mentoring, do not meet standards. 

Real reform will require all of these things, plus the kind of unifying vision Barack Obama has demonstrated - moving beyond the polarizing debates that prevent us from working together to improve education. 

<>Linda Darling-Hammond 
Stanford, Calif., Dec. 8, 2008 

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