feature stories
City teacher helps shape national education policy
Oct 1, 2009 10:22 AM
New York City high school teacher Jason Raymond brings a classroom perspective to discussions in the U.S. Department of Education as a Teaching Ambassador Fellow.
Can it be that the time has come for the voice of the classroom teacher to be heard in the land?
In Washington, D.C., right now, a New York City public school teacher has a place at the table in discussions of educational policy at the United States Department of Education.
And here in the city, teacher volunteers are being asked to bring their voices and classroom perspectives to nationwide research — the Measures of Effective Teaching Project [see page 6] — that will validate the multidimensional work that goes on in the classroom.
Jason Raymond, on leave from the HS of Law and Public Service, will spend this school year in the nation’s capital as one of three Teaching Ambassador Fellows chosen to share their expertise as classroom teachers with federal staff members.
“When I have a voice at the table,” the high school English teacher said, “I speak up. There is an enormous conversation going on to understand what good teaching looks like.”
Raymond, a National Board for Professional Teaching Standards-certified Title I teacher, considers this a “unique moment” not only for the opportunity it affords him to bring a teacher’s perspective to critical education challenges but also because he sees a real commitment in the nation’s Education Department “to get it right.”
He describes Secretary of Education Arne Duncan as “an incredible guy, down to earth and committed, who challenges everyone to do what’s best for kids.”
Duncan has called teacher involvement “crucial” to department plans and acknowledged the fellows as partners in policy discussions.
To top it off, Raymond says the level of expertise of his new colleagues is “extraordinary.”
Although he acknowledges his influence will be limited, he said it will be his job to point out when proposed ideas may not work in classrooms and suggest alternatives.
To policy discussions, he brings an interest and expertise in adolescent literacy, college readiness and turning around struggling urban schools. Prior to his seven years — beginning as a teaching fellow — at the HS for Law and Public Service, Raymond, 38, was involved with tutoring programs for students aged 4-14, and in college admissions and university development.
But it’s being in the classroom working with a predominantly Dominican student population and helping the students gain English proficiency and move on to greater academic challenges that he finds “most rewarding” and to which he is eager to return.
Raymond wound up in Washington, D.C. as a result of his interest in teacher leadership and “snooping around.” That led to his discovery of the Teaching Ambassador Fellowship, which was piloted last year and includes a Classroom Fellowship of 13 teachers nationwide who stay in their classrooms but serve as consultants.
He was chosen from a pool of 1,400 applicants.
Beyond the opportunity for teachers to speak up on policy, the program is designed to create a community of teacher leaders on the national, state and local levels. And that’s exactly what Raymond had in mind when he began snooping around.
