21st-Century Skills Chapter Review: New Policies for 21st-Century Demands

Linda Darling-Hammond is a professor of education at Stanford University.  In this interview, she recommends four policy changes that will improve the ability of the United States education system to prepare students for the future.

1. An aligned standards, instruction, and assessment system
2. An infrastructure that gives teachers and school leaders sufficient time to do the alignment work
3. Schools that are more supportive of in-depth teaching and learning
4. More equitable distribution of resources

One of the major components of her argument is that drastic education policy shifts over the last several decades have hampered American schools in ways that schools in other countries have not been.  The pendulum swings in emphasis between "skills" and "content" have damaged our ability to teach either.

"If you listen to great teachers, their answer about basic skills and thinking skills is always both/and, not either/or.  These effective teachers balance how and what they teach.  They prepare children both for decoding and for comprehending text.... In math, these teachers teach students both how to compute math facts and how to reason, think, and communicate mathematically.... These are the teachers who stay above the wars and reconcile the pendulum swings in daily practice." (p. 36)

Her prescription for stopping the pendulum swings starts with "respectful discourse":

"All must agree that both content and skills are important for serious schooling in the 21st century. ... [Some] organizations fear that the "skills people" will lose sight of valuable content.  They envision that the skills people will put an undisciplined emphasis on collaboration, teamwork, and project-based learning.  They see students working with clay and toothpicks without actually mastering challenging intellectual content.  On the other side, skills people are worried that the "content people" will try to reduce what is to be known and demonstrated to a list of dry, disconnected facts tested by multiple-choice items without attention to meaning or application."  (p. 41)

I am doubtful, but hopeful, about whether this "respectful discourse" is possible in the current political climate.