Central Connecticut State University School of Education
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When he was Secretary of Education, Lamar Alexander observed that it used to be the educators who led the way in calling for change in education and that the politicians had now taken over that role - to which we might add the business community and the legal system. If this is so, we in the Foundations of Education ought to be in the forefront of the effort to regain such leadership.

There are many important scholarly purposes to which the Foundations can contribute. For me, leadership in the public debate on education, including the debate on goals, standards, curriculum, teaching, assessment, organization and finance, and teacher education, is urgent among them. This is the debate which provides the context for educational practice and it is a debate to which the Foundations, as I understand them in their original conception and as variously interpreted today (See Educational Foundations, Fall, 1993), is intended to contribute.

How can we serve such a role in the context of teacher education? The objective of the course in Foundations of Education that I teach to undergraduates is to enable students to develop a heightened awareness of the contextual factors which influence education , the course aims at enabling them to shape their own vision of education, to critically consider existing and proposed policies affecting schooling, to debate orally and in written form the central issues, and to articulate coherent and forceful positions.

The course is based on the premise that teachers have an important leadership role to play in education, that they ought to assume leadership in policy debates on education in both the school and public arenas, and that they ought to be educated for such a leadership role at the same time as they are trained in the methods of effective and reflective classroom practice.

Dr. Daniel Mulcahy School of Education & Professional Studies Barnard Hall Room 271 Central Connecticut State University 1615 Stanley Street New Britain, CT 06050 office:860.832.2418 fax:860.832.2109 email: MULCAHY@ccsu.edu

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School of Education and Professional Studies/Central Connecticut State University/ 1615 Stanley Street, New Britain, Connecticut 06050/Phone: 860.832.2100/Fax: 860.832.2109