A little RESPECT: Ed Department unveils inclusive school reform plan

In the ongoing effort to reform the nation’s schools, the Department of Education has moved forward with a $5 billion program introduced by President Barack Obama during his State of The Union address in late January. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has already moved forward with the proposed RESPECT project, holding a town hall meeting on the effort to bring teachers, unions and colleges of education together to identify the best ways to comprehensively reform U.S. schools.

“Our goal is to work with teachers and principals in rebuilding their profession and to elevate the teacher voice in federal, state and local education policy,” said the nation’s schools chief of the RESPECT project. “Our larger goal is to make teaching not only America’s most important profession, but also America’s most respected profession.”

The RESPECT project, which is shorthand for Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence and Collaborative Teaching, is a competitive challenge to states and school districts to work collaboratively with education stakeholders, unions and schools of education to create and implement substantive reforms that are effective and supported by all parties involved in educating the nation’s schoolchildren and postsecondary learners.

The exact details of the program and the manner in which funding will be handled remain to be seen and will, in part, depend on the actions of Congress. Nonetheless, the Education Department has outlined some goals for the RESPECT project when it comes to the types of reforms officials would like to see as a result of the initiative. According to an Education Department press release, those stated goals include:

• Reforming teacher colleges and making them more selective.
• Creating new career ladders for teachers.
• Linking earnings more closely to performance rather than simply longevity or credentials.
• Compensating teachers for working in challenging learning environments.
• Making teacher salaries more competitive with other professions.
• Improving professional development and providing time for collaboration.
• Providing teachers with greater autonomy in exchange for greater accountability.
• Building evaluation systems based on multiple measures, not just test scores.
• Reforming tenure to raise the bar, protect good teachers, and promote accountability.

Education officials hope the collaborative and inclusive nature of the RESPECT project will help address larger issues surrounding school reform, especially considering how important a quality education system is to the nation’s future.

“This effort will require the entire educational sector — states, districts, unions, principals, schools of education — to change, and teachers have to lead the change,” Duncan said. “We need to change society’s views of teaching — from the factory model of yesterday to the professional model of tomorrow — where teachers are revered as thinkers, leaders and nation-builders. No other profession carries a greater burden for securing our economic future. No other profession holds out more promise of opportunity to children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. And no other profession deserves more respect.”