2011 Convocation: Linda Darling-Hammond

Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University, spoke and received the TC medal at the doctoral hooding ceremony on Wednesday, May 18th. Darling-Hammond, who taught for many years at Teachers College and is also a former president of the American Educational Research Association, is known as a leading architect of whole school reform and changes in teacher education. A former public school teacher, she has founded a charter school in one of the nation?s poorest communities that sends 90 percent of its students to college. At TC, where your work remains a touchstone, you co-founded the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools and Teaching, which has conducted pioneering analyses of successful schools. And through the School Redesign Network at Stanford, you have developed, implemented and evaluated new school models across the country. Under her direction in the late 1990s, the National Commission on Teaching and America?s Future built a national coalition of states that made sweeping changes to teacher education. Education Week ranked the commission?s report, ?What Matters Most: Teaching for America?s Future,? among the most influential research studies affecting American education, and named Darling-Hammond among the decade?s 10 most influential people affecting U.S. education policy. Darling-Hammond also served as education advisor to Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential election, memorably debating her counterpart in the McCain campaign on the stage of Teachers College?s Cowin Conference Center.