Education Leader Linda Darling-Hammond is Riall Lecturer

SALISBURY, MD---As founding executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond has helped create education policy and standards followed nationwide.

The educational leader speaks on “Teacher Knowledge and Student Learning” as part of Salisbury University’s Riall Lecture Series 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 22, in Holloway Hall Auditorium.

Currently the vice chair and senior advisor for the commission she helped found, Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Teaching and Teacher Education at Stanford University. Her research, teaching and policy work focus on issues of school restructuring, teacher education and educational equity.

Darling-Hammond is the author of eight books, including 1998 American Educational Research Association Outstanding Book Award winner The Right to Learn: A Blueprint for Creating Schools that Work. She also wrote Professional Development Schools: Schools for Developing a Profession, A License to Teach: Building a Profession for 21st Century Schools and Authentic Assessment in Action, as well as more than 200 journal articles, book chapters and monographs on policy and practice issues.

Prior to her appointment at Stanford, Darling-Hammond was the William F. Russell Professor in the Foundations of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she was also co-director of the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools and Teaching. She is past president of the American Education Research Association, a two-term member of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and a member of the National Academy of Education.

Darling-Hammond served on many national advisory boards, including the White House Advisory Panel’s Resource Group for National Education Goals and the National Academy’s Panel on the Future of Educational Research. She also served on the boards of directors for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the National Foundation for the Improvement of Education among others.

As chair of New York state’s Council on Curriculum and Assessment, she helped fashion a comprehensive school reform plan supporting curriculum and assessment for more challenging learning goals. As chair of the Model Standards Committee of the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium, she helped develop licensing standards for beginning teachers that reflected current knowledge about teaching higher standards to diverse learners.

Darling-Hammond earned her doctorate in urban education with highest distinction from Temple University in 1978, going on to serve as director of the National Urban Coalition’s Excellence in Education Program. She has received many accolades, including the Association of Teacher Educators’ Distinguished Educator Award in 1997 and the Council for Chief State School Officers’ Distinguished Leadership Award in 1998.

Her lecture is free and the public is cordially invited. For information call 410-543-6030 or visit the SU Web site at www.salisbury.edu.