On Tuesday, September 20, Deborah Ball lent her voice to a Twitter panel focused on ensuring that all children have access to skillful teaching by increasing teacher diversity and training through effective teacher preparation. The panel was hosted by the Center for American Progress and Hope Street Group. The entire chat can be viewed here.
Deborah Loewenberg Ball delivered one of the plenary addresses at the 13th International Congress on Mathematical Education in Hamburg, Germany on Saturday, July 30. Her talk, "Uncovering the Special Mathematical Work of Teaching," focused on the specialized set of instructional practices that are core to helping young people develop mathematical skills, ways of thinking, and identities, and supporting classrooms as equitable communities of practice. Slides from her address are available here and a video is available here.
Deborah Loewenberg Ball served as the keynote speaker at the 2016 Commencement Ceremony of the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) on Saturday, July 9.
“Deborah Ball is a one of those transformative educational leaders that comes along only once in a generation,” said Rev. Timothy R. Scully, C.S.C., co-founder of ACE and the Hackett Family Director of Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives. “Throughout her prodigious career, she has formed and inspired countless teachers, school leaders and research scholars dedicated to improving educational quality at every level. Her life’s vocation serves as a powerful witness for the ACE community.”
Read more about the event here.
Deborah Loewenberg Ball was recently interviewed by Cynthia Canty, host of Michigan Radio’s Stateside program, about the problems facing would-be teachers who are struggling with teacher certification tests.
“We’re creating a false threshold or barrier to get people into teaching,” Ball said. “If we test on things that are not the important kind of skills and knowledge they need, then we’re going to artificially exclude people from the profession at a time when we most need really skilled teachers.”
Ball emphasized assessing the wrong skills is one of the fundamental flaws of teacher certification tests in Michigan. “We don’t actually have a test that looks at whether they can explain content to children, whether they can manage a classroom, whether they can talk sensibly to parents, and that is the direction of the profession, assessing people on the actual skills they need to be good beginning teachers.”
Listen to the full interview here.
Deborah Loewenberg Ball recently sat down for an interview with Detroit Free Press reporter David Jesse to talk about, among other things, her time as dean of the School of Education and how teacher preparation has evolved in those 11 years.
“We do have the expertise to do research on what makes a good teacher and how we can better train them," Ball told the Free Press. "We study and improve education practice. By education practice, we mean the doing of education. We want to be an incubator of new methods, to really look at what works in teaching."
Read the full article here.
Deborah Loewenberg Ball delivered the address at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 14. Ball urged the nearly 600 graduating Penn students to stand up for the power of teaching and seek to advance education and social justice throughout their careers. In her remarks, she compelled the graduates to “speak up about the power that good teaching has. Explain that it has to be learned, that it is not a natural talent. Promote its development. Stand up against interventions that take skillful teaching for granted, or overlook what it really takes to learn to do it.” She concluded her remarks by asserting that “the evidence is clear. The order for social justice in this country is long, tall, and overdue. Just remember that, among the resources for that societal change, is the power of teaching.”
Deborah Loewenberg Ball has been voted president-elect of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Her term as president begins on May 1, 2017, at the conclusion of AERA’s 2017 Annual Meeting.
She will succeed Vivian L. Gadsden, William T. Carter Professor of Child Development and Education at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Gadsden will assume the AERA presidency on April 12, 2016, after the close of the association’s 2016 Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
“I am honored to have been elected as president-elect of AERA,” Ball said. “The organization has an important role to play in advancing systematic efforts to study and improve education. I will be working with many others to determine the most useful steps we might take together in the coming few years. I look forward to building on the work that Vivian Gadsden will do in her term as president, as well as on that of others who have served in this position before us.”
Deborah Loewenberg Ball has been named to a new commission announced by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to “examine the vast—and expanding—array of learning options available to high-school graduates, including both students newly out of high school and older adults returning to school to further their lives and careers.” The aim of the Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education is to study how well current students are served by today’s education system, as well as to identify challenges and opportunities that will be encountered by higher education in coming decades.
The Academy received $2.2 million from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to fund the three-year initiative. Spencer Foundation President Michael S. McPherson and TIAA-CREF President and CEO Roger W. Ferguson, Jr. will co-chair the commission. “The critical issues in this area—cost, financing models, accessibility, dramatic changes in learning patterns and in technological possibilities—require our attention and close scrutiny, on behalf of all Americans,” McPherson said.
Deborah Loewenberg Ball’s contribution to the statewide teacher evaluation discussion was mentioned in a Detroit Free Press guest column written by Amber Arellano, the executive director of Education Trust – Midwest. The column offered suggestions on how to improve education in Michigan.
The author wrote that “the Legislature’s approval of Michigan’s first statewide educator evaluation and support system, which was designed in large part by Deborah Ball, a nationally respected dean at the University of Michigan’s School of Education” will play a role in improving Michigan’s public education system.
Read the full article here.
A feature story posted on KQED’s Mind/Shift, a website for “educators, tinkerers, policy makers, and lifelong learners,” is an in-depth look at the U-M School of Education's teacher education programs. The story begins with Deborah Loewenberg Ball, who explains, “Teaching is complex work that people actually have to be taught to do,” and goes on to elaborate on how SOE accomplishes it, through innovations in high-leverage teaching practices, development of student teaching interns, skill-building, and student teaching. In addition to Ball, several SOE educators are noted and quoted in the piece, including Tim Boerst, chair of Elementary Teacher Education; Professor Betsy Davis; and Elizabeth Moje, associate dean for research and community engagement.
Access the story, “What Core Skills Do Teachers Need to be Effective? here.
In a column written by Michigan Education Association President Steven Cook appearing in The Detroit News’ “Labor Voices,” Cook cites the work of the Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness (MCEE), which was chaired by Deborah Loewenberg Ball. Cook writes, “Although the legislation passed by the House and Senate does not contain all of the council’s recommendations, it represents a vast improvement over the present evaluation process. It is important to note that in creating the Ball Commission and using its report as a guide to reform, the Legislature acknowledged that experts in the field are invaluable in guiding education reform forward. That too is a change for the better.” Read the column here.
Deborah Loewenberg Ball is featured on National Public Radio’s series on 50 Great Teachers. In a wide-ranging feature, Ball talks about educating educators: "I'm really trying hard to dispel this idea that teaching is this thing you're born to do and it's somehow natural to everyday life. I don't think either of those things is true. Nobody goes out in a pilot school and is told: 'Go out in the plane today! Try it out. See how it works.’"
The feature also mentions TeachingWorks, and especially the Elementary Mathematics Laboratory (EML). The NPR story illustrates the approach in EML with an actual fractions problem taught in the laboratory.
The feature concludes with a summarization of Ball’s approach to education: “What Ball is trying to model at U-M is a system where future teachers have to demonstrate they can do some core things–like present a math problem, and lead a discussion about it–before they're safe to practice.”
Listen to “Teaching Teachers to Teach: It’s Not So Elementary” (or read the transcript) here.
A story in the Deseret (Utah) News, “Teaching the teachers: Do we know how to create real professionals?” quotes Deborah Loewenberg Ball. On the contention that teaching skills can be taught, mastered, and tested, Ball said, "Our position is that [the] profession should take responsibility for this." The story also mentions TeachingWorks and its focus on high-leverage practices. Read the story here.
An editorial in The Detroit News, “Find a compromise on teacher evaluations,” mentions the work of the Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness and its chair, Deborah Loewenberg Ball. The editorial calls for balancing more effective teacher evaluation systems with protection of existing tenure reforms. Read the editorial here.
Joe Nocera, an op-ed columnist for The New York Times, has written about the work of Deborah Loewenberg Ball with the Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness (MCEE). Nocera said, “The council’s idea was that the evaluations could be used not just to rid the system of incompetent teachers—though it would certainly do that—but also to give all the other teachers critical feedback. It also envisions transforming professional development, which is now mostly a wasteland, into a mechanism to put that feedback into practice.” Read the op-ed here.
A Detroit Free Press editorial, “Teacher evals latest victim of GOP’s local control fetish,” cites Deborah Loewenberg Ball and the recommendations of the Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness that she chaired. Read the editorial here.
In the InformED blog on the website of the Education Policy Center, American Institutes for Research, Deborah Loewenberg Ball is quoted on teacher preparation. “These are things that we can teach people how to do using videotape, specific feedback, and practicing moves,” she said. “It is not simple to lead productive discussions with 30 or more students, but it is something that can be taught and learned.” Read the blog here.
In a story posted today, Bridge magazine examines proposed state legislation on teacher evaluations that significantly departs from recommendations by a council led by Deborah Loewenberg Ball. The Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness recommended rigorous statewide standards, but pending legislation ignores the council’s recommendations in favor of local district control over teacher accountability. Ball says the legislation is “disappointing” and “makes no sense.” Read the Bridge story here, and a Q&A with Ball here.
Deborah Loewenberg Ball received an honorary degree from Lesley University in Boston and addressed graduates from the university's Graduate School of Education at their commencement May 16. Ball began by saying that in being present at the commencement, she is "reminded again of the power of education, and also the power people have. Education hones that power and refines it. There is nothing that moves me more. Be a force out there. Be an educator and agent for justice."
She talked to graduates not only about what they have done, but also about what she hopes they will do. They have already made an impact on faculty and fellow students, she said, "enriching them with their expertise and perspective. You're prepared to contribute in new ways.”
In addition, Ball received the Teachers College Medal for Distinguished Service at TC's convocation May 18. The award is given to scholars who have highlighted critical issues in research and practice and championed strategies for change. Ball was honored at the college's first Master's Degree Ceremony on Monday afternoon, May 18. Teachers College, Columbia University is the oldest and largest graduate school of education in the United States.
Ball also addressed graduating students in TC's Departments of Arts & Humanities and Curriculum & Teaching. "The evidence is clear. The order for social justice in this country is long, tall, and overdue. Just remember that among the resources for that societal change is the power of teaching."
Deborah Loewenberg Ball has contributed the essay “We will pay for our lack of respect for teachers” to Michigan Radio’s The Next Idea, in which she notes the crucial nature of effective teacher training. “The time is now. The future of our nation depends on every student in every classroom receiving skillful teaching every day. This is a fundamental civil right of every child,” she said. Read the essay, and listen to an interview with Ball on Stateside with Cynthia Canty, here.
