More than 400 national, state, and local education leaders – including U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan – met in Cincinnati last week for a two-day conference on transforming the teaching profession.
More than 100 school districts from 41 states sent teams to the event, and one of the two Indiana school corporations to send representatives was Oregon-Davis. Superintendent Dr. Steve Disney, Teacher Association President April Max, and School Board President Chris Lawrence attended along with a team from Ft. Wayne.
The conference focused on how collaboration between teachers and school administrators can improve student achievement. It also addressed teacher recruitment and evaluation.
The 33,000-student Cincinnati district is leading the state in developing a teacher evaluation system that ties teacher pay to student performance. The new evaluations are the product of contentious negotiations between the district and its teachers union in 2010 that led to what both sides said was their most transformative contract to date. The district is now the highest rated urban district in the state.
The conference dwelled on the teaching profession. It highlighted innovative approaches to improve student achievement by elevating the profession and getting more good teachers in the nation’s schools.
