* A Committee on Schooling, which since its founding last summer has sponsored a forum on the recent flood of literature calling for school improvements, and which plans a similar colloquium next year on large-scale innovations in public education.
* Possibly reinstating some sort of teacher and principal certification programs for students at the Ed School.
* Possibly creating a program for Harvard undergraduates to earn teacher certification while pursuing their undergraduate degrees. "We're discussing this plan with (Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education) Sidney Verba ('53) and other members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences," says Ursula E. Wagener, Ed School assistant dean for academic and student services. "It's only in the idea stage now, but we're committed to the concept behind it--to get bright people into teaching."
A Background of Change
Five years ago, the Barth report found that in the '50s, the Ed School succeeded in the dual mission of "training teachers, guidance counselors, principals and superintendents and, at the same time, in promoting distinguished research."
But while theoretical research in education was blossoming in the '60s, the report criticized the Ed School for "shifting dramatically" away from being directly concerned with schooling.
Barth says he attributed the decline during the '70s in concern with schooling to "pessimism about how much schools could accomplish. Studies were coming out that emphasized other factors as being crucial to a child's intellectual growth--particularly his background--race, class, homelife, and parents."
In 1979, the Ed School faculty voted to accept the Barth report's recommendation that the school get back to close involvement with "educational practice and practitioners."
Other factors also contributed to the faculty turnaround. When Graham became the school's new dean in 1982, she said, "We must increase our efforts to understand and to improve those institutions whose primary activity ought to be education--namely, the schools."
President Bok echoed those sentiments in his 1983 Commencement address, when he called on the Ed School to increase its role in the "growing national concern for higher standards of education." Bok spoke on the heels of a widely publicized report by the National Commission on Excellence in Education--appointed by President Reagan--which roundly assailed public education in the United States and called for a smorgasbord of reforms.
However, Graham says the increased national concern over education fostered--but did not cause--the Ed School's new sense of mission. "Our renewed commitment to schooling preceded the appointment of the commission and the papers and reports. It began even before the Department of Education was created" in 1979.
But for Ed School students solely interested in teaching, the school, which produces far more administrators than teachers, may still not be the ideal place to study.
"I think this new emphasis has been more toward administration than classroom teaching," says Rebecca Beardshaw, a masters student who wants to be an elementary school teacher.
Lawrence F. Dieringer, a masters student who plans a career in teaching, says there is still "little emphasis on teaching, learning, and curriculum." He hopes the school will "make a greater effort in the direction of pedagoguery."
"I think it is very difficult to change any organization overnight, even it school of Ed.," says Laura A. Cooper, a third-year doctoral student who plans to enter the public schools as an administrator. "But it's important to recognize that the programs and activities that have been put into effect are very important first steps toward bringing the Ed School closer to the real world."
"We must increase our efforts to understand and to improve those Institutions whose primary activity ought to be education--namely, the schools...There's no question about the fact that we want to pay more attention to teaching."
--Ed School Dean Patricia A. Graham