SACRAMENTO – Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, internationally recognized education expert, and veteran teacher Kathleen Harris have been named Chair and Vice Chair of the Commission on Teacher Credentialing for 2013. The two were elected at the Commission’s December 7, 2012 meeting and will serve through December 2013.
“I have greatly enjoyed the work over this last year with the members of the Commission,” noted Dr. Darling-Hammond. “We are very well organized at this point to do important work going forward. It is work well worth putting one’s shoulder to the wheel for.”
Linda Darling-Hammond is Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University where she is Co-Director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. She launched the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute and the School Redesign Network. She has also served as faculty sponsor for the Stanford Teacher Education Program. She is former president of the American Educational Research Association and Member of the National Academy of Education. Her research, teaching and policy work focus on issues of school restructuring, teacher quality and educational equity. From 1994- 2001, she served as executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, whose 1996 report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future, led to sweeping policy changes affecting teaching and teacher education. In 2006, this report was named one of the most influential affecting U.S. education and Darling-Hammond was named one of the nation’s ten most influential people affecting educational policy over the last decade.
Darling-Hammond is the author of over 400 publications including: The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity will Determine our Future (2010) and Powerful Teacher Education (2006). She holds a BA magna cum laude from Yale University and an EdD (Urban Education) from Temple University. She began her career as a public school teacher. Her professional experience prior to Stanford University includes: Director and Senior Social Scientist for the RAND Corporation’s Education and Program; William F. Russell Professor of Education and Co-Director, National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is currently also a member of the Boards of Directors for the National Council for Educating Black Children Board, the Alliance for Excellent Education, the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, and the Center for Teaching Quality, among others. She was education adviser to President Obama during the 2008 election campaign and led his education policy transition team.
In response to her nomination, Kathleen Harris said, “I am honored to be a member of the Commission and truly honored to be your vice chair-elect. This Commission does important and critical work. I am excited and pleased to be a part of it.”
Ms. Harris currently teaches 5th grade at Olivet Charter School in Piner-Olivet Union School District in Santa Rosa where she’s been a teacher for 25 years. From 1998 to 2009 she served as the Regional Director of the California Reading and Literature Project at Sonoma State University. She has done extensive study in the areas of reading, reading readiness, assessment, English language development, school reform, school leadership, and professional development, and has engaged in many field experiences with both teachers and principals, working to improve student achievement through effective professional development, technical assistance, and school reform. Harris has provided professional development in English Language Arts and English Language Development for K-12 teachers and administrators throughout the state as well as within the eight county region of the Sonoma/North Coast region of the California Reading and Literature Project. She continues to provide professional development focused on the California Common Core State Standards.
Harris became involved with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Development work in 2009 as a member of the National Council of Teachers of English Review Panel. In December of 2009 she joined the CCSS Development Team working on Text Complexity, and is actively working on this component of the CCSS. In 2010 she served as a member of the California Academic Contents Standards Commission.
