Sutton chosen to attend National Education Conference

The conference is part of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s Project RESPECT, which stands for “Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence, and Collaborative Teaching.”

According to the department’s website, www.ed.gov, the purpose of the RESPECT Project is to “directly engage with teachers and principals all across America in a national conversation about teaching,” and to “elevate the teacher voice in shaping federal, state, and local education policy” — ultimately bringing back respect to the teaching profession. The conversation about teaching focuses on improving student outcomes but also on staff and administration working together to hold each other accountable, and to become more skilled and competent.

Sutton previously worked with The VIVA Project in Minnesota (www.vivateachers.org), which gives teachers with actual classroom experience a chance to collaborate and to have a voice regarding educational policy. A Q & A with him, entitled “VOICE: Tales from the Classroom” was featured on the VIVA website in April of this year. From December 2011 to January 2012, 600 teachers in Minnesota made suggestions for principal evaluations and 12 were chosen as “thought leaders” to collaborate and write a recommendation for improved principal evaluations.  Sutton was one of the co-authors of the “Minnesota Report on Principal Evaluation,” which was presented directly to Gov. Mark Dayton early this year.

In attending the conference, Sutton says he will “provide professional feedback and suggestions from a rural school/educator’s perspective. In my experience, diversity is not only about which students attend a school but in the variety of school settings and sizes. Any policy made in Washington should have the flexibility to empower local leadership and parents to control the local education system.”