Bruce Baker of Rutgers has taken it on himself to dissect the claims and plans of the “reformers” about teacher education.
The reformers hate traditional ed schools, even those connected to major flagship universities. They blame them for accepting bottom third students and then training them poorly.
Baker looks at the issues and examines the “cures” offered by the reformers, none of which will solve any of the problems that identify.
Baker pointed out in an earlier post (and repeats it here) that most of master’s degrees in education are now being generated not by mainstream ed schools but by online universities (mostly for-profit). Won’t alternate routes simply expand the reach of online universities of dubious quality? How will that attract the top third into teaching?
Here is his conclusion:
To me, these trends are pretty astounding, and serious consideration of these trends must play into any discussion that alarmists might have about the supposed decline in the quality of teacher and administrator preparation (to the extent these alarmists give serious consideration to anything). Those ringing these alarm bells seem more than happy to suggest that the obvious problem lies with traditional “ed schools” (read, regional and state flagship public colleges and universities) and that the obvious solution is to provide more alternative routes, online options – teacher preparation by MOOC… (and likely not a MOOC delivered by Stanford U. faculty… but rather through Walden, Capella and the like) & expansion of schools relying on imported, short term labor supply.
I also find it strange to say the least that those who argue that the problem is that our teachers don’t come from the upper third of college graduates seem to believe that the solution is to expand the types programs that tend to grow most rapidly among colleges that cater to the bottom third (less & non-competitive). To those reformy alarmists who feel they’ve identified the obvious problems and logical solutions, the above data should make sufficiently clear that we’ve already gone down that road.
Further, I’m thoroughly unconvinced that new models purporting to be more selective in the teachers they prepare, but relying largely on a self-credentialing model (we use our teachers to credential our teachers… and only accept as graduate students those who work in our schools?) focused primarily in ideological & cultural indoctrination are a step in the right direction. I have little doubt they’ll find a captive audience to self-credential and maintain a viable “business model,” (by requiring their own teachers to take courses delivered by their peers & bosses to achieve the credentials needed to keep their jobs) but this endogenous, back-patting self-validating model is no way to train the future teacher workforce.*
All of this begs the question of what next? Where do we go from here? How to we achieve integrity and quality in the production of degrees and credentials, and more broadly training and preparation of future teachers and administrators? I really don’t have any answers for these questions right now. But I’m pretty sure that the last two decades have taken us the wrong direction!
This is a really good piece and Mr. Baker’s observations are very accurate. Unfortunately most teachers I know choose to go to for profit online graduate programs.
I have had numerous conversations with my fellow teachers about choosing the right graduate program when they decide it is time to get there Masters. I make every effort to try and convince them to go to a “flagship state school”, but the vast majority do not. Their reasons are always the same; too much money, too much work. These are almost always younger teachers who are underpaid and overworked. Some have student loans they are paying off and to ask them to spend even more money is tough to do. Sadly the for profit schools fit their needs better at the expense of a significantly lower quality education.
Is part of the issue that teacher salary increases are a function of having a masters degree rather than distinguishing between high and low quality masters degrees?
yes
I recently watched WAITING FOR SUPERMAN with elementary school teacher wife, and this analysis points out what I noticed about that movie too: sometimes these corporate “reformers” correctly identify problems, but their “solutions” invariably make the problem worse.
Probably because their point was not to fix anything except the flow of our tax dollars into their pockets.
Yes, always follow the money. Right on Mr. Dixon.
By design, teaching is no longer a career but a job for the vast majority.
I can see one model. That is the Jr. Colleges where 80% of the teachers hold no teaching certificate and are paid by the classroom hours taught which is about $25 an hour. No credit is given for lesson plans or grading papers. Because of scheduling, etc., many don’t work more than 15 hours a week.
Universities have classes of hundreds run by professors and then use graduate assistants making nothing or at best minimum wage to run small discussion groups. This option has been growing by leaps and bounds for decades and the cost of tuition out strips inflation.
At the high school level, there was a waiting list for teachers to teach summer school and night school for a below base pay. Their eagerness helped with our undoing.
Under better conditions in recent decades, the state tried to attract better people with a pension as a form of deferred compensation. We know how that is working out.
As in Chile, where there has been a voucher system since 1980, there will be an increasing gap between the have and have nots.
The real competition is from other countries. Many have superior educations, but live on a dirt floor. Why not come to America and have air conditioning. Our poor live better than some of their rich.
Small point of disagreement. When I was a graduate assistant in a not-too-wealthy state, I had full tuition and fees covered along with a decent stipend. It certainly wasn’t slave labor. Every major school that I investigated when looking for Ph.D. programs was the same.
I saved money when I was in graduate school, but that was more years ago than I like to remember. The best economics departments now have much more fellowship money than GTA support.
Crowd sourcing in education on its way here?
I am curious about the claim that education schools draw from the bottom third of students. I tried to investigate this at my own institution but could not find the data. I did discover that 72% of grades given in the ed school classes are A’s. The college of liberal arts and sciences awards 40% A’s while in my own department it is more around 20%.
I do know that GRE scores are much lower for applicants to Schools of Education than the other disciplines. It’s seems odd that students with the lowest GRE scores would be earning A’s at a rate so much higher than other disciplines.
Doesn’t it seem reasonable that the difficulty and requirements of the Ed schools could be ratcheted up a few notches to bring the grades more in line with every other department?
The bottom 30% claim is based solely on students’ ACT or SAT scores from 11th grade. However, that is only an entrance requirement for undergraduate acceptance at universities.
Contrary to popular opinion, there is a lot of gate keeping at many Schools of Education, which typically have additional entrance, retention and graduation requirements beyond what universities usually require for most of their other students:
For acceptance at undergraduate colleges of education, students must meet additional criteria, such as passing university competency exams, passing state tests of basic skills, as well as minimum college GPAs and criminal background checks. This usually means that while students may begin taking lower level courses in education, including and participating in observations and some clinical experiences during their first two years, acceptance into the school of ed does not occur until their third year.
Once accepted, students in schools of education usually have clinical performance and academic performance reviews each semester, to determine whether they are meeting standards in the knowledge, skills and dispositions required of prospective teachers.
Many schools of education also have exit requirements that differ from the graduation requirements in other colleges at the university, which may include additional coursework and GPA requirements. For example, at one ed school where I’ve taught, the requirements for graduation are: “a minimum cumulative 2.5 GPA. They must also have a minimum cumulative 2.00 GPA in their Core Curriculum and a minimum GPA of 2.8 in their education major and content area major.”
Teacher certification is not automatically granted upon graduation. Teacher candidates must also pass state tests and/or the Praxis in their content areas and an assessment of professional standards of teaching, in order to obtain state certification, depending on location.
I forgot to mention that the entry GPA requirement into the ed school at the same university for which I provided graduation GPA requirements is 3.0, so it’s higher than the GPA needed for graduation.
It seems to me that GPA requirements are not very informative without knowing the grading criteria. The GPA of my institution’s education school (I should be clear this is for undergraduates. the graduate GPA would be much much higher) has to be well to the north of 3.0.
I was referring to the GPA for entrance only to the undergrad school of education. There are usually limits on the number and kinds of education courses students can take, before being accepted into ed schools, so the GPA under consideration reflects core curriculum (gen eds) more than anything. (This is all on a 4 point scale.)
Graduate schools of education typically use multiple measures for determining acceptance, including scores on the GRE or GMAT, and requirements may vary by program. Hence, many graduate ed schools, including the top ones, like Harvard and Stanford, don’t publish a required GPA.
If the Ed school where you teach grades like the Ed school at my institution, your graduation GPA requirement would not appear to be binding.
Schools of education are not well thought of by the faculty of other schools, though it is primarily the graduate programs that are criticized.
In every college program where I’ve taught, every year, there have been students who did not make it through to graduation and/or certification, primarily due to issues around academics, including their GPAs.
GPA is a concern for grad students as well. Again, in every program where I’ve ever worked, students were regularly dismissed for not maintaining the required minimum GPA, which is typically 3.0
In my experience, the same belief that there is no need for teachers to study education which we see in “reform” circles prevails in the ivory tower as well, and I believe that’s because most professors are subject matter experts and never studied education themselves. Interestingly, the majority of Professional Development activities that I’ve attended in higher ed have attempted to make up for that, such as by focusing on a variety of teaching methods and encouraging professors to not use lectures as their dominant teaching strategy. That is nothing new for Ed faculty, but it is new for a lot of profs, many of whom resist change.
I should clarify that the specific grad school policy is that, if grad students get two grades below C+, they are dismissed from the program.
I put a link in my other post. Bottom line–there’s a difference between where ed schools draw from and the academic qualifications of the teaching pool. The teaching pool does not draw from the lower third. Elementary school teachers are from the 40-55%ile, roughly, and secondary school content teachers are 50-75% in their content area.
Part of the problem is the cost of quality teacher preparation programs. I chose to do the right thing and get my Master’s at a well-respected institution with a strong focus on Urban Education, marginalized student populations, and social justice. I worked full-time, had to take off countless days to complete the hundreds of hours of observation, worked many evenings and weekends instead, and then had to live off of student loans during my student teaching days. Now, I am forever saddled with student loan debt. I believe if improvements are to be made, the Fed government should step up and fully-fund Masters Programs for strong candidates. Top-performing countries don’t require teachers to go into extreme debt to enter teaching. And a teacher’s salary is not going to pay off loans quickly if at all.
Even the sorry Teacher Loan Forgiveness programs have far too many loopholes and pay out far too little. With the current, unstable teaching context, where a teacher can be fired at any time through school actions regardless of teaching quality, even the “public service” forgiveness programs fall short as you may not be able to work 10 years “continuously” in the public sector. I understand the proliferation of for-profit, on-line poor quality programs. There is a niche due to rising higher education costs and fewer financial benefits in teaching so the private industry filled it. This turn of events is demonstrably bad for children. Tell Duncan and Co. at the DOE to stop giving money to Teach for America and instead give out more full scholarships for teacher candidates to attend our best teeacher ed programs.
I think that a step towards reform would be for teachers to admit that many Schools of Education programs are a huge waste of time. When I decided to change careers, I took the required ED classes for certification along with working towards an MA in History. I would have lost my mind if it wasn’t for the classes outside of the school of ed that challenged me. Even the graduate classes were less difficult and useful than anything I took during my undergraduate degree.
On the separate issue of online diploma mills for teachers and admin, I think that this is the fault that every degree is equal in the eyes of many salary scales. When I was in Chicago, a good number of the central administrators held Ph.Ds from diploma mills. Ironically, these people were the ones who insisted that people call them doctor. This has been going on for a long time. Teachers should have been complaining and acting against the fact that these watered down programs and online diploma mills are devaluing teacher prep. It hurts us all.
I find it sad that many complain that alternate routes get teachers out of credentialing programs when they know how poor many of those programs are. If we aren’t willing to push back against this, someone else will do it for us.
Even Ed schools at major state universities are diploma mills relative to the liberal arts and science colleges at the same institution. A professor at an Ed school may well have more active doctoral students in a given year than faculty in arts and sciences will have ini a lifetime.
I’ve heard a lot more trashing of teacher education from career switchers, alternative cert teachers and “reform” folks than from educators who were traditionally trained, so I’d like to say that my experiences were very different from others who took non-traditional routes and bash schools of education.
Although I was in an alternative undergrad program, at a state university, which didn’t require me to take any traditional courses, I took a number of education courses anyways and I was very impressed by my experiences there. Thus, I decided to pursue master’s and doctoral degrees at traditional graduate schools of education, both of which I found to be just as rigorous, engaging, enlightening, and applicable to my work.
As rigorous, engaging, enlightening as what? If the rigor was the same, I don’t think you’d find the 70+% A’s that the person above stated.
Perhaps different schools have different kinds of programs. I’ve taken bachelor and masters level education classes at 4 different state universities in 4 different states. I haven’t had an education class yet that required the same amount of reading, writing, and analysis as the graduate social science and humanities classes that I took.
I’d say that of the teachers I talk to privately, whether they are 2nd career or not, at least 3/4 bemoan what a waste of time that it was, and freely admit that the rigor is just not there.
Again, maybe you went to a very rigorous education school. I don’t think that there are too many out there. This does not mean that many teachers I know couldn’t handle a rigorous program, only that they didn’t have to.
BTW, even though I changed careers, I took every ed class that any ‘traditional” path student took. I just did it alongside my MA coursework, so I had an extremely direct comparison of the rigor between the programs.
“both of which I found to be just as rigorous, engaging, enlightening, and applicable to my work” as each other, as well as the undergrad education courses which I chose to take as an undergrad student.
Most of the complaints I hear are sour grapes from people who took education courses they did not want to take, and many of them believe. like most “reformers”, that there is no need to study education. Well, I had already been teaching for decades and had studied a lot independently, but I knew that I still had much to learn and I acknowledged it. Contrast that with TFAers who comment that they are “great” teachers with their five weeks of training and in their first year of teaching.
Folks need to get some humility, as well as recognize where they have gaps. For example, there is a strong research base documenting that teachers do not automatically pick up on children development just from being around kids.
Sorry, that last reply was from me but I used my roommate’s computer and the wrong name is there.
Teacher education is not the problem here. We will never attract top third students until we recognize education as a profession worthy of the same respect (and accompanying salary) as similarly educated professionals. In the teacher education program where I serve as Director, we turn students away every semester whose qualifications were acceptable to enter the University but unacceptable for admission into our teacher education program. Many programs across the country have high standards and rigorous programs and are producing exceptional teachers. Sadly, programs that help attract top third students into education, like the model NC Teaching Fellows program, are being cut by legislators. Meanwhile, teacher education programs are continuously forced to revise their courses of study due to changes in the tests required for licensure (again, decided on by legislators who know little to nothing about teacher education).
The author doesn’t appear to distinguish between non-teachers getting their credential with a master’s program, and teachers getting a master’s for the salary boost. I suspect that many, but not all, of the diploma mill masters are for existing teachers.
Lots of nonsense being bandied about in the comments about teacher quality.
1) Anyone who thinks that “ed school grads” = “teachers” should be ignored. Half of all ed school undergraduates never become teachers. The rest become elementary school teachers, special ed teachers, or PE teachers *after* (as someone did point out) they pass a praxis test. Lots of low skilled people go through the ed school program and never become teachers.
2) Most secondary school content teachers degreed in something else, and their average SAT scores are comfortably in the top half of the college graduate population.
Raising Praxis cut scores would only reduce the number of black and Hispanic teachers. Given the complete lack of evidence proving that teacher content knowledge is linked to student achievement, that would be an insanely stupid move. The teacher content tests are sufficiently difficult now.
Cite: http://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/teacher-quality-pseudofacts-part-ii/
There should be some data on this at the NCES website. I’ll take a look.