Video: Students Are Taking Charge of Their Own Learning

Posted Mar. 13, 2015 in High Standards

Charlie Cummings is the senior director of the America Achieves Fellowship for Teachers and Principals and the founding partner of Educator Voice Strategies. Full profile →

Educators are seeing first-hand how students can excel in school when the bar is raised.

Amber Peterson “was totally floored” when her students made a connection on their own between her math lesson and geography. Francine Leggett “doesn’t know what to do” with a class of kindergartners who are using their newfound writing skills to petition her for improvements at their school.

Watch the video to hear two uplifting stories from the classrooms of a New York City teacher and an upstate New York principal who have been recently inspired by their students’ response to lessons aligned to the Common Core standards.

The America Achieves Fellowship is committed to helping great teachers and principals share what’s happening in their schools with the public. If you ever want to talk to a teacher to learn how education policies play out in the classroom, let us know. We’d love to help!

Charlie is the Program Director for State Fellowships at America Achieves, where he has led the creation of teacher leadership programs in Colorado, Michigan and New York.