2014
The Education Resources Consortium was founded in 2009 to support schools and communities in taking on more serious redesign efforts, and to develop the leadership and technical capacity to do so. As ERC celebrates its fifth anniversary, distinguished Rhode Island educator Craig Levis sits down with co-founders Wayne Ogden and Larry Myatt to hear about the road traveled and ahead.
Read MoreVermont, a country unpeopled, and almost unknown in the last war, now abounds in the most active and the most rebellious race of the continent, and hangs like a gathering storm on my left.” —General John Burgoyne-August 1777
British General John Burgoyne wrote these pre-battle words as he entered The Battle of Bennington, Vermont. Shortly after, Colonel Seth Warner and members of the Green Mountain Boys, supporting American colonial General John Stark, decisively defeated a detachment of Burgoyne's army. The loss reduced it in size by almost 1,000 men, led his Indian support to abandon him, and deprived him of supplies. The British were forced to proceed to Saratoga without the supplies, where they met a stunning defeat that turned the tide of the American Revolutionary War.
Read MoreMary Beth Kinkead
The only sound in the room was the tearing of gift-wrap beneath my hands. I was being celebrated for completing my administrative licensure program and securing a position as an assistant principal in a nearby town.
Despite my leadership training, I still felt I was headed for unfamiliar territory. I had identified all my adult life as a teacher, not an administrator, yet there it was amidst the gift-wrap: a mahogany and brass name plate for my new desk. My colleagues’ applause turned to uproarious laughter as I retrieved the next gift item, a bottle of Advil...empty, and symbolic of my supervising principal’s need for its contents over the course of the past school year. But their laughter rang ominously in my ears; what was I getting myself into? Mercifully, the final item buoyed me: rose tinted sunglasses.
Read Moreby Sarah Ottow
When I started as an English Language Learner (ELL) teacher, I had a caseload of over 200 students from more than 30 linguistic groups, and spread across six schools. Yes, you read that correctly—200 students, one teacher, six schools. You could say I didn’t know what I was getting into.
I was the new, and more importantly the first, elementary “ELL specialist” in a predominantly white, middle class, suburban Milwaukee district. Admittedly, I was an idealistic, ready-to-do-whatever-it-takes young teacher, hired in a frenzy the day before school started (I look back now wondering if no one else would take the job...). I learned right away that the district model for “ELL services” had just undergone a dramatic shift and that my unwritten job responsibility was to deal head-on with all of the resulting complexities.
Read Moreby Katrina Kennett, ERC Consulting Practitioner
The number and technical capacity of digital devices in the hands of kids in growing up is unprecedented. It’s a big deal and danah boyd’s book It’s Complicated gives us a lot to think about. I think it’s worth a read.
Are kids really ‘addicted’ to technology?
Read MoreERC played a key role as April 23rd technology industry leaders from around New Mexico gathered in Albuquerque to begin developing curricula for the new Technology Leadership High School, one of the now three Leadership High Schools in the city that focus on major New Mexico industries. At this second Summit, leaders from across the tech sector such as PNM, Sandia National Labs, Sage Technologies, Deep Dive Coders, Univ. of New Mexico Division of Solar Engineering and many others, convened with personnel from the New Mexico Center for School Leadership to discuss and design classwork, projects, and guidelines that respond to the specific needs of New Mexico’s technology industry and the Albuquerque region’s students.
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