Katheryn Canada This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. 90.3 WCPN®: Spotlight: News

   www.wcpn.org/spotlight/news/20 - [Cached]

   Published on: 3/15/2003   Last Visited: 3/15/2003

   Katheryn Canada is Project Director for the Task Force. The effort, she says, is just a continuation of the work accomplished by the now-dissolved Governor's Task Force on Student Success, which completed it's work about a year ago. It's findings provided the springboard for Senate Bill One, last year's education reform bill that refined academic standards throughout the state. But that wasn't the end of it.
   
   Katheryn Canada: One of the provisions was to create a subsequent commission to study teacher quality. And that's the background for the governor's for the commission on Teaching Success - started in November 2001.
   
   BR: Canada says the task force's mission dovetails with President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, which took effect past spring. Among other things, she says, the Bush initiative mandates a quality teacher in every classroom. That's a tall order, she says, and task force members are looking for ways to recruit, and more importantly, retain good teachers.
   
   KC: Areas to be studied span the life of a teacher. Recruitment, preparation, support, professional development, compensation, and the reaching/learning environment, and leadership.
   
   BR: Canada is careful to point out that the goal is not to beat up on the teaching profession, which has taken some heat over the years for poor student achievement, but rather to find ways to give teachers more, and better, opportunities to grow.
   
   KC: We don't necessarily have the kind infrastructure here in Ohio to make sure that kind of training can happen throughout a teacher's career. So a barrier is figuring out how to create that infrastructure.