printable versionEducation professor wins volunteer service prize
BY CASEY LINDBERG
Linda Darling-Hammond, the Charles E. Ducommun Professor in the School of Education, is this year's recipient of the Miriam Aaron Roland Volunteer Service Prize. The Haas Center for Public Service hands out the award each year to recognize Stanford faculty who make significant contributions through public service and encourage their students to do the same.
Throughout her career, Darling-Hammond has focused on restructuring schools, improving teacher quality and promoting educational equity. Her tireless public service contributions have made an impact both locally and nationally.
At Stanford, she launched the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute, a partnership that aims to improve student achievement by supporting public-sector leaders, as well as the School Redesign Network, an organization that works with struggling districts to provide students with an equitable education. Darling-Hammond helped found the charter high school East Palo Alto Academy, a public school whose 90 percent graduation rate is unheard of for its area.
At the school, Darling-Hammond volunteered her time as a faculty sponsor. But Nicky Ramos-Beban, former principal of the school, said that Darling-Hammond's work was "way above and beyond any notion of faculty sponsor I've ever encountered. She took it upon herself to not only help design the school and connect all the teachers to great minds and important people in the reform movement, she also personally mentored the teachers and myself."
Darling-Hammond said that the mobilized effort by Stanford faculty and students at East Palo Alto Academy is "changing the aspirations of the community for education and for future life chances." She said that the Stanford involvement is a "particularly gratifying relationship, and it's wonderful to have that work recognized on behalf of all the people who have contributed to it."
Darling-Hammond's public service work at the national level also has resulted in real progress for education reform. As executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, she helped write a 1996 report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future, that led to widespread changes in teaching policy. Darling-Hammond explained that the report led to the development of numerous programs that provide financial incentives for good teachers to teach in high-need areas. Prior to the report, mentoring programs for new teachers did not exist in many states. But based on its recommendations, such programs are now ubiquitous.
Although the report led to many successful policy changes, there are still major changes that need to take place to promote equitable education and better teaching environments. "We've seen a lot of progress on various fronts, but there's still a long way to go," said Darling-Hammond.
Creating schools that are organized for success is one area that is most stubborn to reform efforts, Darling-Hammond said. In high-achieving schools in some nations, teachers spend a significant amount of their time working together as a team, planning together and observing each other. "In this country, teachers have almost no time to do any of those things," said Darling-Hammond. "We don't enable teachers to continually get better at what they do. They kind of have to do that on their own at their kitchen table on Sunday night."
Recently, Darling-Hammond has continued to fight for education reform at the national level as education adviser to Barack Obama's presidential campaign and, later, as head of his education policy transition team. Darling-Hammond explained that she was inspired by the involvement of Stanford students in the campaign and that it has been wonderful to get students involved in helping policymakers understand the research regarding the possible courses of action that are most likely to help solve education problems.
Gabe Garcia, the Peter E. Haas Director of the Haas Center for Public Service, said that Darling-Hammond's "goal has always been to improve student learning through the professional development of teachers and the design of creative and effective learning environments."
The Roland Prize was established in 2004 as an endowment gift to the Haas Center from alumna Miriam Aaron Roland. Included in the prize is a $5,000 cash award that was presented by Provost John Etchemendy at the sixth annual Community Partnerships Awards Luncheon April 28. The event was co-hosted by Stanford's Office of Public Affairs and the Haas Center.
Casey Lindberg is an intern at the Stanford News Service.