Teaching 2030

In the raging controversy over the purpose of public education and how to fix the nation’s underperforming schools, the voices of America’s best teachers are seldom heard. Now for the first time, in a provocative book about the future of teaching and learning, 12 of America’s most accomplished classroom educators join a leading advocate for a 21st-century teaching profession to bring expert pedagogical know-how and fresh and provocative policy ideas to the national school reform debate. Together they identify four emergent realities that will shape the learning experience of children born in the New Millennium — and propose six levers of change that can ignite a bright future for our nation’s students by ensuring they all have access to excellent teaching. To create the public schools all students deserve, today and tomorrow, the authors call on policymakers and the public to work with teachers in:

• Creating a dynamic and flexible learning environment for students and teachers, and powerful new ways to define and measure school success;
• Transforming public education through digital technologies while reinventing brick-and-mortar school buildings into 24/7 hubs of community support for students and families;
• Re-imagining teaching as a well-compensated career with many pathways, assuring that every child has qualified and effective teachers and that teaching expertise is constantly spread, in and out cyberspace;
• Establishing a new leadership force of 600,000 “teacherpreneurs” — classroom experts who continue to teach students regularly while also serving as teacher educators, policy researchers, community organizers, and trustees of their profession.

Teaching 2030 provides a refreshing, grounded, and lively examination of what we need to know and do in order to ensure that every public school student in America has access to qualified, caring, and effective teachers.

Barnett Berry is founder and president of the Center for Teaching Quality, based in North Carolina—a nonprofit that seeks to dramatically improve student achievement nationwide by conducting timely research, crafting smart policy, and cultivating teacher leadership. The TeacherSolutions 2030 Team includes Jennifer Barnett (Alabama)• Kilian Betlach (California) • Shannon C’de Baca (Iowa) • Susie Highley (Indiana)• John M. Holland (Virginia) • Carrie J. Kamm (Illinois) • Renee Moore (Mississippi) • Cindi Rigsbee (North Carolina)• Ariel Sacks (New York)• Emily Vickery (Florida)• Jose Vilson (New York)• Laurie Wasserman (Massachusetts).

“A fresh take on the real future of teaching.”
—Richard Riley, former U.S. Secretary of Education

“Brilliant….Everyone who cares about teaching and learning should read this book.”
—Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University

“In this engaging volume, a notable and diverse team of accomplished teachers, and a researcher who advocates for them, explain why the teaching profession needs a dramatic overhaul and present an intriguing path to a more promising future. Whatever one's take on the particular recommendations put forth, this provocative work is a welcome contribution to thinking about how we can get our kids the teachers they need.”
—Frederick M. Hess, Resident Scholar and Director of Education Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute

“Teaching 2030 is a remarkable, revolutionary picture of the future of our schools. Blasting the intellectual meltdown shaping too much of today's education policy, Berry and his colleagues reveal extraordinary opportunities to improve our schools and serve every student. Deeply respectful of teachers, Teaching 2030 proposes how teachers and support professionals can help craft and take more ownership of their professions. This is an exciting and hopeful vision of possibility.”
—Dennis Van Roekel, president, National Education Association

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue: We Cannot Create What We Cannot Imagine

Chapter 1. The Teachers of 2030 and a Hopeful Vision
   Students of Today and Tomorrow
   "Imagineering" the Future: Learning and Teaching in the Year 2030
   In 2030, Teaching Is Understood as Complex Work
   In 2030, New Trust Remakes Teaching and Learning
   In 2030, Confronting Educational Inequities
   Tipping Toward a 21st-Century Profession
   Emergent Realities Shape the Teaching Profession of 2030

Chapter 2. A Very Brief History of Teaching in America
   From Women's Work to Industrial Age Automatons
   Thorndike Beats Dewey in the Early Struggle
   "The Great Society" Looks to Teaching for Answers
   Unions Ascend as Teaching Pressures Mount
   Professionalism Versus Deregulation in the Late 20th Century
   Looking Forward—with Some Hope and Audacity

Chapter 3. Emergent Reality #1: A Transformed Learning Ecology for Students and Teachers
   Learning from Isaiah, Ziad, and Many Other Students
   Confronting the Limitations of 20th-Century Standardized Tests and Accountability
   Improve Measures to Improve Teaching and Learning
   A Different Kind of Accountability
   A New Learning Ecology for Teachers Too
   Working with Special-Needs Students
   Teachers Working with Each Other

Chapter 4. Emergent Reality #2: Seamless Connections In and Out of Cyberspace
   Melding the Virtual and Physical Worlds
   The Diverse Needs of Students Today and the Schools Tomorrow
   The Community-Centered School
   We're Wasting Time Arguing About 20th-Century Schools
   Connectivity for All

Chapter 5. Emergent Reality #3: Differentiated Pathways and Careers for a 21st-Century Profession
   Outgrowing a One-Size-Fits-All Profession
   Redefining the Profession for Results-Oriented Teaching
   Teacher Education for a Differentiated, Results-Oriented Profession
   Professional Compensation for a Differentiated Profession

Chapter 6. Emergent Reality #4: Teacherpreneurism and a Future of Innovation
   Scaling and Spreading Teacher Expertise
   The Making of Teacherpreneurs
   Teacherpreneurism for Connected Learning
   Teacherpreneurs for Research
   Teacherpreneurs for Best Practice and Policy
   Teacherpreneurs for Community
   Creating a System of Teacherpreneurship

Chapter 7. Policy Levers of Change: Accelerating Change and Transforming Teaching
   Change Lever #1: Engage the Public with a New Vision for Teaching and Learning
   Change Lever #2: Rethink School Finance
   Change Lever #3: Redefine Teacher Education and Licensing to Advance the Spread of Effective Teaching
   Change Lever #4: Cultivate Working Conditions That Make High-Needs Schools "Easier To Staff"
   Change Lever #5: Reframe Accountability for Transformative Results
   Change Lever #6: Transform Teacher Unions Into Professional Guilds

Chapter 8. Taking Action for a Hopeful Future
   What You Can Do to Build a 21st-Century Teaching Profession

Notes

About the Authors

Index