Bridges to the Future - Education Practices

This video features a panel discussion of three prominent educators, Principal Michael Johnston, Former Superintendent Jerry Wartgow, and Middle School Teacher Jen Phillips, moderated by 9News Political Reporter, Adam Schrager. The panelists begin by providing opening statements: Wartgow opens with a context for educational reform initiatives, highlighting common, ongoing issues--unsatisfactory academic achievement, increasing pressures for accountability, continuing gaps in performance between poor and affluent students, lack of parental involvement, limited teacher and administration capacity, funding uncertainties, low expectations, change resistance culture, and local-national power struggles--and past attempts at addressing them. Phillips describes two shifts happening in the classroom: 1) a shift from teaching to learning and 2) a shift from knowledge to 21st Century "readiness." She talks about the questions that are being asked by Professional Learning Communities, the growing collaborative nature of learning, and the change toward employing real life problems into the classroom. Johnston focuses on practice, policy, and the overlap between the two and explores the need for "common American standards" across education.