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Staff development central to Learning First's mission

Learning First views staff development as central to its mission, a
potentially powerful boost to NSDC's work.

By Dennis Sparks
RESULTS - May 1998

The Learning First Alliance, a coalition of 12 important national organizations, has committed itself to achieving ambitious student learning goals in reading and math. Member organizations represent school board members, superintendents, curriculum specialists, principals, teachers (both the NEA and AFT), chief state school officers, and parents. Learning First hopes state affiliates of the member organizations will form their own networks to further its goals.

Learning First views professional development as central to its mission, which, given the reach and potential influence of the member organizations, could give a powerful boost to the kind of staff development advocated by NSDC: results-driven, standards-based, whole-school, and job-embedded.

NSDC has been a champion of stretching goals and the deep changes they require, so it commends Learning First for its focus on ambitious goals in reading and math. In reading, Learning First wants virtually every healthy child born this year to read at or above the basic level of the National Assessment of Educational Progress by age nine and every elementary school student reading by high school graduation. In math, Learning First wants every child to complete a challenging K-12 curriculum that includes mastering introductory algebra and geometry by the end of ninth grade.

THE CHALLENGES AHEAD

To achieve these important goals for all students, the organizations in the Learning First Alliance face three challenges. The first challenge is finding ways to extend their influence beyond their memberships to affect all individuals within the role groups they represent. For instance, Learning First's success depends on the National School Boards Association and the American Association of School Administrators affecting the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of all school board members and superintendents. Second, those organizations and their state affiliates must design powerful learning experiences that deeply affect participants, and they must reach tens of thousands of individuals with those experiences, not just a handful. Sit-and-get workshops for a few hundred individuals to meet CEU requirements will not do the job.

The third challenge is perhaps the most demanding one: these organizations must affect their members' beliefs about the importance and achievabilitiy of these goals. As we know, attitudes can have a powerful affect on behavior, can be easily hidden, and are often the most difficult to change.

SIGNS OF SUCCESS

A sign of Learning First's success will be including more powerful learning designs at the national conferences of its member organizations and the meetings of their state affiliates. Other signs of significant progress will be when school board members advocate high-quality staff development and ask searching questions about its effectiveness, when superintendents build community consensus around high academic expectations for all students, when principals and teachers together create compelling school improvement plans focused on student learning, and when parents demand that school systems provide educators with learning experiences that will help educate all the community's children to high levels.

If you are a member of any of the Learning First organizations or their state affiliates, we encourage you to tell them how they can help you achieve the Alliance's goals. Let them know what you need to learn, the research you require, and the practical products they can provide that will assist you in meeting the challenges you face.

NSDC supports the Learning First Alliance in its efforts and will assist it however it can. Together, we can do what none of us can do alone - create schools in which all youngsters learn at high levels.