The Exxon Education Foundation last week awarded $1.25 million to the school-reform center founded by John I. Goodlad, the renowned author and professor.
The five-year grant--announced at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education’s annual meeting here last week--will support the national reform efforts of the Center for Educational Renewal, based at the University of Washington in Seattle.
The foundation has pledged $3.65 million to the center since it was created in 1985.
The center has focused on reviving colleges of education and local schools by strengthening the ties between them.
In 1990, Mr. Goodlad published Teachers for Our Nation’s Schools, a widely praised study of the state of teacher training.
Today, the center oversees school-university partnerships and other projects in 16 settings that belong to the National Network of Educational Renewal. The sites are in more than a dozen states.
“I’m happy to see [these reforms] are catching hold,” Mr. Goodlad said last week.”
“Once ideas get deeply embedded in the culture, they just don’t go away,” he said. “That’s what I’m interested in.”
Mr. Goodlad’s newest project involves creating “centers of pedagogy,” where representatives from the arts and sciences, colleges of education, and local schools would work side by side. Several universities are setting up such centers, Mr. Goodlad said.
The teacher colleges’ association honored Mr. Goodlad last week with its Edward C. Pomeroy Award for his contributions to teacher education.
In addition to directing the center, Mr. Goodlad is the president of the Institute for Educational Inquiry, also based in Seattle.
