IFT focuses on culture of success
Volume 12, Issue 7 - April 2008
With a major statewide workshop coming up in May, CTA’s Institute for Teaching (IFT) continues to make progress in its effort to support teachers in closing the achievement gap.
Although CTA has taken a number of major steps over the past 20 years to close the achievement gap for all students, its nonprofit institute has capitalized on those years of real teachers’ experience and created a number of initiatives that build on that success.
“Instead of looking at our schools as something broken to be fixed, the CTA IFT has encouraged teachers, administrators, school board members, parents and community leaders to take a close look at their schools and classrooms to find out what’s working well and to use that information to make changes in our schools,” says CTA Vice President Dean Vogel. “We think this is one approach that will make a difference.”
One of IFT’s cutting-edge projects has been to conduct student and parent interviews at seven of California’s lowest-performing high schools to find out what’s right about high schools, classrooms, subjects, teachers, students, parents and families. Based on 800 extensive interviews, the IFT found that the following factors drive a culture of success: focusing on the future; strengthening the work ethic; expanding family-school relations; strengthening the social ethic; valuing child rearing practices; encouraging system-wide thinking; and moving to a learning-centered environment.
For its latest program, IFT secured a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to work with a target amount of schools to reduce the high school drop-out rate.
IFT’s “Closing the Achievement Gap by Understanding the Culture of Success” workshop on May 16-17 in Sacramento represents the next step in building on those factors.
Says Vogel, “The answers to closing the achievement gap lie with our teachers who know what works and with our students and parents who know how important a good education is to their future and the future of their communities.”
To get more information contact the CTA Institute for Teaching at (916) 288-4931 or www.teacherdrivenchange.org.