You are enthusiastically invited to participate in the 2012 Professional Development Schools National Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada!

In November 2010, a Blue Ribbon Panel of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education published “Transforming Teacher Education Through Clinical Practice: A National Strategy to Prepare Effective Teachers.” The report called for turning the education of teachers “upside down” by creating programs “that are fully grounded in clinical practice and interwoven with academic content and professional courses.” In the months since the release of the Blue Ribbon Panel Report, the National Association for Professional Development Schools has been discussing with NCATE ways that NAPDS members, who have been centering their programs on clinical practice for years, can assist in implementing the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Panel Report. This year’s PDS National Conference is a first step in that direction.

The Call for Proposals for the 2012 conference produced the largest number of submissions in the thirteen year history of this event, and so you can look forward to the sharing of more than 300 strategies that have proven successful in (to paraphrase the Blue Ribbon Panel Report) delivering, monitoring, evaluating, overseeing, and staffing the clinically based preparation of teacher candidates. You can also look forward to hearing from three inspirational keynote speakers, with Don Clerico, the Director of Charleston Southern University’s Office of International Programs, opening the conference Thursday evening with an overview of a very unique clinical experience involving teachers and teacher candidates working with schools in Ghana. On Friday morning, Linda Darling-Hammond, one of this nation’s most influential educators, will address the critical role of clinical practice in the preparation of teachers. And on Saturday morning, Dwight D. Jones, the Superintendent of Clark County Schools in Las Vegas and co-chair of the NCATE Blue Ribbon Panel, will share his view on the processes that led to the publishing of the report and how we as educators can help facilitate the report’s recommendations in the months and years ahead.

Other conference events include Thursday morning workshops and facilitated discussions, a Thursday morning visit to PDSs in the Las Vegas area, and teacher candidate poster sessions on Saturday morning. We also will be recognizing the recipients of the 2012 NAPDS Award for Exemplary Professional Development School Achievement and the Conference Planning Team’s 2012 Spirit of Partnership Award. As always, we have built into our time together multiple opportunities for personal relaxation, including Thursday and Friday evening receptions for everyone and a special reception for teacher candidates. We invite you to actively participate in all of the conference events and to encourage colleagues who may not have previously been a part of the PDS National Conference to attend as well. They will not be disappointed with what they take away from the event!

A Request for Assistance

As he announced at the 2010 PDS National Conference in Orlando, Dr. Bruce Field (University of South Carolina) is compiling a list of all PDS partnerships in the United States. Such a list would not only help us all answer the often-repeated question of “How many PDSs are there?” but would also serve as an invaluable resource for PDS practitioners as we seek to learn from each other. He has broken that task down to a state-by-state search and is looking for individuals in each state to take the lead in compiling the list for their particular state. If you would like to be a part of this endeavor, please contact Bruce for specifics. He can be reached at fieldb@mailbox.sc.edu.

The Professional Development Schools National Conference is sponored by: