Phyllis L. Kossoff Lectures

Moderator: Mark Bomster, assistant managing editor, government and politics, Education Week @educationweek Guest Analysts: Jeffrey Henig, professor of political science and education at Teachers College and a professor of political science at Columbia University. He also serves as the Education and Politics & Education program coordinator, Teachers College, Columbia University @TeachersCollege Alyson Klein, staff writer, Education Week and "Politics K12" blogger. @PoliticsK12 Liz Willen, editor, The Hechinger Report @hechingerreport

Taking the Election to School: Making Education a Focus of the 2012 Election

In a half-hour speech that inaugurated TC’s Phyllis L. Kossoff Lecture, Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education praised Teachers College and many other education colleges that have provided high quality preparation programs for many years. But in general, he said, teacher preparation programs need a major overhaul if they are to help close the achievement gap between minority and white students, improve graduation rates, and prepare more students for college and the workplace. “To keep America competitive, and to make the American dream of equal educational opportunity a reality, we need to recruit, reward, train, learn from and honor a new generation of talented teachers,” Duncan, speaking at the Alfred J. Lerner Hall on the Columbia University campus, told a crowd of nearly 900 that included TC faculty, students, staff and alumni, as well as elected officials and school leaders from New York City and beyond.