As part of the USC Rossier School of Education’s Centennial year activities, Dean Karen Symms Gallagher and Alumnae Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana (PhD ‘95), President Obama’s Assistant Secretary of Elementary and Secondary Education, are hosting “A Conversation About Education” in Washington D.C.

USC alumni and MAT@USC students will participate in this informal discussion about recent education reform, programs and goals on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at the USC Washington, D.C. Center.

Please contact our admissions team for details.

When Karen Symms Gallagher ran into fellow education deans last year, many of them were “politely skeptical,” the University of Southern California dean says (politely), about her institution’s experiment to take its masters in education program online.

Early results about the program known as MAT@USC have greatly pleased Gallagher and USC. One hundred forty-four students enrolled in the Rossier School of Education program’s first full cohort in May, 50 percent more than anticipated and significantly larger than the 100 students who started at that time in the traditional master’s in teaching program on the university’s Los Angeles campus.

Read the full article here.

Dean Karen Symms Gallagher authored a column in the Huffington Post about how Race To The Top funding is changing the game for teacher compensation and what that means for programs that prepare teachers who have their masters in education.

“As states across the nation begin linking student achievement to teacher pay, professional development programs need to begin teaching teachers to use student data effectively to understand what kids are and are not learning,” Dean Gallagher wrote in the piece.

“New teachers will have to know what strategies the more effective teachers are using in their classrooms.”

Read the full article here.