Anthony Cody reports on legislation prepared by Colorado Senator Michael Bennet that would decimate teacher professionalism. He wants federal funding for new teacher and principal academies that would lower standards for entry into education.
There is the usual blather about “excellence,” “great teachers,” standards and accountability, but the heart of the legislation is what it does not require:
“(B) shall not have unnecessary restrictions on the methods or inputs the teacher preparation academy will use to train teacher candidates or teachers teaching on alternative certificates, licenses, or credentials, including restrictions or requirements–
(i) obligating the faculty of the teacher preparation academy to hold advanced degrees;
(ii) obligating such faculty to conduct academic research;
(iii) related to the physical infrastructure of the teacher preparation academy;
(iv) related to the number of course credits required as part of the program of study;
(v) related to the undergraduate coursework completed by teachers teaching on alternative certificates, licenses, or credentials, as long as such teachers have successfully passed all relevant State-approved content area examinations…”
Cody concludes,
“So anyone with a bachelor’s degree – actually it does not even specify that – can open a teacher preparation “academy.” They need no building, no trained faculty. The credential candidates need have no preparation whatsoever – all that matters is that they pass the state content exams.”
These federal academies might not have a single faculty member who held an advanced degree or had ever conducted research. There might not be a physical campus. The prep academies would eventually be judged–someday–by the test scores of their graduates.
This approach would eliminate professional training for teachers.
Contrast this with Finland, where only eight universities award teacher degrees, and competition to get into these institutions is highly competitive. Only 1 of every 10 applicants is accepted into them, and they are expected to conduct research, study academic and pedagogical courses, and practice teach.
Finland has very high standards, but Senator Bennett’s bill would eliminate all standards for students and faculty.
Need I add that the bill is supported by a veritable “Who’s Who” of the corporate reform world, including TFA, Stand for Children, and a multitude of charter schools, all of whom are committed via this document to lower standards for teachers..
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It means training teachers to implement ONE teaching method, so that there will be many more drill sergeants and “no excuses” military style test prep charter schools.
LikeLike
Soon education certification will be easier to obtain than licenses to become a hairdresser! Wait! Maybe beauty schools COULD offer degrees in education! Think of the money we’d save! And the kids’ grooming would be so much better!
LikeLike
Mr. Cody wrote, “Our schools of education do not do a perfect job of preparing teachers. There are many ways in which they could improve, especially through closer connections to our schools, and more active use of experienced teachers. ”
If people agree with these suggestions, what is being done to promote them? I ask because as I visit around the country, I see a variety of outstanding public schools, district & charter, whose faculty are not being used much if at all by colleges of ed.
Some years ago, our Center surveyed 20 Mn state “Teachers of the Year.” They had been selected by a committee that was established by the Minnesota Education Association (statewide teacher association).
We hired a number of them to do workshops. They were terrific. No one could provide they were the single best teachers, but they had many skills and did workshops that were very highly rated by other educators.
While virtually all of these Teachers of the Year had been asked by parent/community groups to talk with them, virtually none of them had been asked by a college of ed to teach a class.
So I’m interested in what Mr Cody or others are doing to help promote what he suggests (not a criticism, a question).
Thank you.
LikeLike
This law has very little to do with university teacher education programs and engaging in critiques of such programs distracts from its primary intent. Graduates of colleges of education as poorly prepared teachers is a conceit the privatization industry has been floating for years. Hence the substance free and well funded NCQT can pose as a facsimile for judging quality education programs.
This law opens the market for alternatively trained teachers who can obtain credentials from unregulated, fast track diploma mills. Curriculum designed by free marketers; teaching the dogma of deregulation, cheap labor, at-will employees, deprofessionalization, and compliance.
LikeLike
I have to admit that after completing my masters in secondary Ed and achieving National Board certification, I enrolled and completed the required college class to mentor student teachers. Upon completion I was told that teachers of gifted students are not given student teachers, so I never had that opportunity. I subsequently completed our state required LATAAP mentor training which was a two-year evaluation program of sorts for new teachers. Although a well designed program much like a mini National Boards, it was poorly administrated in several ways. Mentors were not given time out of class so had to use planning periods to observe. I was only assigned new teachers in my own school so I was given a band instructor and a math teacher (I am ELA). So I stopped mentoring in that program after to years as I didn’t feel I was doing the new teachers justice. When I began teaching 21 years ago, I had no mentor at all. That was typical. I believe the most important change that needs to occur is the provision for full time master teacher mentors at every school. That could be provided by retired teachers or NBCTs. Now in Louisiana we have a new law that retired teachers cannot substitute or mentor or serve as adjunct instructors at public schools or colleges without forfeiting retirement benefits. Children lose. My dream would be to mentor again even for free but our district, and probably most, would never agree to a program such as that. I don’t know why?
LikeLike
I am in a similar situation. With umpteen years of education and experience, I could be valuable mentoring new teachers. What a goldmine for school systems to lose out on. It shows again that all this talk about improving teaching and learning, is neither about kids nor about teachers. Only about making $$. In that mix, experienced knowledgable retired educators may just get in the way. TFAtypes are easier to use and profit from.
LikeLike
you will be a valuable commodity because many parents are not buying the new dawn of robot school. a group of parents I know are looking to hire a couple of retired teachers to homeschool their kids. it will be the wave unless, like scandinavia and germany that is illegal. sounds like a class action situation to get your pensions.
LikeLike
I would have loved to have had a mentor like you. Believe me, the need exists and not just for new beginning teachers; there should be better support systems in place for teachers who transfer to a new school setting. It is mind boggling that stellar retired teachers are often so underutilized. If you’re open to the mentoring process and are lucky enough to find a true mentor, it can be a beautiful thing. What education is becoming does little to inspire me to go back to school to get a master’s degree at this point. Why would I choose to go into further debt/student loans when the traditional degree and accumulated experience I already have (and worked very hard to get) isn’t valued, appreciated, or even desired in certain hiring realms? That seems to be the opposite of what human capital is looking for and let’s not forget the financial bottom line. More experience and higher credentials makes you a more expensive employee. It is made clear that you are an at will employee. It is hard to commit or consider indebting myself further when it doesn’t seem like there is a stable commitment that is being made to me in return. It can become a solitary venture, feeling like you have to prove yourself and your worth, where the biggest factor that inspires
you are the kids. It is not that I am opposed to continuing education; quite the contrary. I am open to PD, reading, researching,reflection, learning from others, etc… It just seems that if I were to choose a program for continuing ed. the master’s degree may not be the most meaningful or relevant option even. How telling that I even have that thought as an
educator? Just the other day I was subbing in a charter school that seemed to be staffed with a lot of young TFA folk. One commented to me as a first year teacher can assess
“You seem to be a great substitute teacher!” I just smiled and said thank you; I did not go into my life story but I thought to myself after considering my degree, past experience as a teacher, working for multiple schools, school systems, and administrators and having extensive sub experience “Well, I
better be a damn good substitute after all of that,
thanks for noticing.” The rules of the game called education have changed so much. I’m not sure what game some people are even playing and there are days that I don’t know what place I have in it. What is being valued and the skill set that is desired has shifted. There needs to be a restored respect and value placed on the quality education of the ones doing the educating, the real educational PROCESS that includes mentoring and regular self reflection.
I want to work in a school where there are educators that have more experience than I do, where childhood is still sacred and teaching to the whole child is valued, where there is rigor, relevance, high expectations, goals, Yes; but where the human element is the core focus overriding the data statistics and
testing syndrome. My conclusion is that that does not appear to exist currently and that getting a master’s degree in education is not going to make a difference in helping me to find it. So,in the meantime, I am just a certified “great sub”.
LikeLike
You might want to check out Minnesota New Country and other schools in their network. Many have teacher majority boards. Many of them have veteran teachers who value skill, experience and expertise.
LikeLike
As I encouraged another reader, start something for mentoring on your own. As a non-profit or as a business or as a volunteer outreach. Just because the districts reject these offers doesn’t mean the idea has to die. The whole idea of the reformers is to circumvent the systems in place. We can do that too but with the formulas we know are of better quality and not just aimed at the lowest common denominator (the secret to big business).
Go for it!! Find a clever name and start it up.
LikeLike
I wonder how many of these new “teacher academy” graduates could get hired at Sidwell Friends, Chicago Lab, or Harpeth Hall?
LikeLike
Great question, Alan. It seems the graduates of Senator Bennet’s teacher prep academies will be best qualified to teach to the test. The elite schools you mention, and our best public schools, would not want them. They want teachers who encourage critical thought, creativity, intellectual independence. They want teachers who are deeply knowledgeable, who can students to ask questions and think of alternatives, not pick The Right Answer.
LikeLike
I was once history dept chair at a prestigious New England independent school and was hiring a new teacher. Had it down to 2 candidates- one with an MEd the other an MA. The headmaster chose the MA. I asked why, and he said that “We will have to teach either of them how to teach. The problem with the guy with the MEd is that he believes he already knows how to do it.”
LikeLike
Good question!
LikeLike
When I surveyed private schools in NYC several years ago, I discovered that they had no knowledge or interest in formal teacher education education or certification. (Perhaps that has changed?) Moreover, I’ve never spoken to a parent who sends his or her kids to a top private school who is particularly concerned about formal teacher education or certification (although I’m guessing that some exist).
I think most people know that teacher certification is mostly a joke that, at best, screens out people that top private schools would never consider in the first place.
The biggest beneficiaries of our current system are the ed schools. The rest of us would be better served by subject-matter competency tests and voluntary programs that would only survive if teachers and principals found them useful.
LikeLike
Please post a copy of your survey questions, the schools, and the results.
LikeLike
Sure! It was from December in 2008. It was NOT scientific at all. I had a research assistant contact 10 top private schools in NYC to ask them if they tracked whether their teachers were certified or not. I can’t find the final results (which she probably delivered to me over the phone), but here’s her email after getting through to three of the schools:
“of the ten however, i heard back from three – spence, brearley and trinity – and they all said the same thing, which is that they don’t keep track of certification numbers on the teachers because it just doesn’t matter to them. experience and background are much more important, especially since they have the freedom of not having to care whether the teachers are certified or not. it’s not an added bonus, since they don’t hire based on that at all.”
My recollection is that the other schools that returned her call had the same response. I never posted on this because it all seemed too anecdotal. I’d be curious to hear if anyone has experience with top private schools caring about formal teacher education (i.e. from an ed school) and/or teacher certification.
LikeLike
No need for teachers to learn anything about child and adolescent development or a variety of teaching methods, just content knowledge is good enough for you, huh? That’s called entertainment, a la Oprah, Martha Stewart et al, who have both claimed to be teachers, but have never studied education and have no need of knowing anything about the people they are “teaching.” They also don’t need to know the strategies that are most effective for teaching different types of content, in order to reach diverse learners, since they don’t have to get to know each of their “students” or interact with them daily. And they are not held accountable for the successes and failures of their “students,” who are primarily adults. Content knowledge is insufficient for teachers of children –who are not just little adults.
LikeLike
So, in essence, Ken Hirsh tries to pass off telephone responses from THREE schools (1) as a “survey” and (2) as indicative of something.
And it probably IS indicative of something…some seriously sloppy thinking.
Does this kind of “analysis” permeate the hedge fund industry, Ken?
LikeLike
What is notable in Ken Hirsh’s clarification is that he says that he schools surveyed did not track teacher certification. That is not surprising, as certification is a public school requirement. His initial comments conflated certification with teacher education, which seems to be his own, politically motivated, editorial comment. Background and education of teachers, having been on the board of one independent school and sent kids to two others, speaks exactly to teacher education. Somehow, so many people in these political wars seem to have loved their teachers, but now live on with a deep animus to the profession.
LikeLike
I note some serious flaws in the GREAT Act–which will be great for those seeking to make a profit, but terrible for kids. Texas de-regulated teacher prep and adopted even more standardized tests around the year 2000. By 2007, more teachers were prepared thru alt cert than thru traditional routes. By 2009, privately managed alt cert programs were the primary provider of teachers–particularly in STEM fields. Yet, as I show in my blog, teachers from private alt cert programs were much more likely to fail the certification test in their content area. Why? Because the incentive for private providers is enrolling huge numbers of people in the program regardless of whether they can actual pass the test. Any enrolled person PAYS.
LikeLike
So it’s about money and not competence, it would seem.
LikeLike
As one reader wrote a month or two ago, why are there not more professors from Colleges of Ed in on this discussion? At least on this blog? Where are they? What do they have to say? Teachers are tap dancing as hard as we can to keep up with teaching, learning the common core, doing right by the children and the tax payers and fighting for our profession. . .this seems to me it is getting to where the professors we were taught by should step up and offer something up. Research? Forgive me if I have overlooked people who fall in that category but as a whole, university level education academics seem oddly silent. I have a friend who is excited to have just gotten into a College of Ed at a local University. . .I wonder will she hear about all that is going on? Surely they are not just carrying on with business as usual.
LikeLike
This style of teacher “preparation”, for lack of a better word, is exactly what fits the new style of teaching promulgated by the corporate reformer crew. The more automated the teaching, the less prepared teachers need to be. The less practical wisdom is honored in the profession, the less practicality (pragmatism) and wisdom, based on experience matters as skills necessary for quality teaching.
In today’s world, it is simply a matter of turning on the computer program (Khan) and let the students follow his instructions…while new teachers babysit.
LikeLike
If this is the “goal”, then where does the mantra of recruiting the “best and the brightest”come into play? The automated teaching you describe would lead to mediocrity and, thus, “ineffective teaching.” This reads like a conflicting message to me.
Of course, I’m not so dense to not know that the corporate definition of “effective teaching” is all about test scores.
LikeLike
As I read much of these posts daily, I am beginning to have a slow realization that we are “barking up the wrong tree”. The problem with we teachers of “the past” is that we value the process of education and we value school as a social institution that prepares students to enter the society as a fully functioning participant. But, the society we “see” in our minds is quickly evaporating. As efforts are made to divide the “classes” into economic haves and have nots, we see education being channeled likewise. Much of what is going on presents cognitive dissonance because it doesn’t seem to do what it clams to be doing. That makes us shudder inside and scream within our minds and hearts. I believe we are mourning the loss of the profession we were trained to promote and that we innately love.
The new entity calling itself “education” has thrown aside the very element that is needed for students to grasp the full value of what they have learned … time. Education has become fast-paced, fast-facts, fast-evaluations, fast-turnover, and heartless. Those of us who mourn are sad that the heart and soul of educators is being ripped out and replaced by random fact generating, cooperating, teachbots that will be marking time while testing students for a couple of years before they march to a job that pays well. Students are no longer humans but data producers. Students must be viewed as inputs, and teachers must be viewed only as “efficient” by some “standard” that has nothing to do with humanity or reality, but everything to do with money. Time is money. We are going to begin churning kids through schools like little computers. But, never mind if the child is sick, or if students are learning about bravery from a student who is dying of leukemia or whose dad has died in a motorcycle accident. Never mind humanity. Just “save the tax payers dollars” and feed the private coffers.
Until we realize that we are waging a battle with a group that does not hear human cries, we won’t succeed in turning back the tide.
As for the professors … I do believe they are being impacted by these changes as well. There is a very capitalistic view of all that transpires in the U.S. these days. Anything that isn’t viewed as cost effective is pared down and rubbed out. I do believe that much of the backlash in the “reform” movement is against the colleges of teacher education …
I wonder who will be cutting my trees down in 20 years.
LikeLike
I would respect these privatizers more if they would just be forthright and say, “Look, we know what we propose is garbage. We just want the money.”
LikeLike
M. Schneider: yes!
After almost five years of following ed blogs, I have [sadly] learned to use this rule of thumb when it comes to the arguments of the leading charterites/privatizers: if it’s fast, dirty, and cheap, they’re for it! Rheeally!
With one critical proviso: when it’s mandated for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN.
When it comes to the education of THEIR OWN CHILDREN, well, nothing illustrates a point like a little dose of wake-me-up freezing cold water, courtesy of Planet Reality.
Under “50 Reasons” to send your “most precious assets” [Michelle, I know you listened!] to Harpeth Hall: #2, “A Harpeth Hall teacher is an educator, coach, mentor and friend”; #4, “Exceptional faculty: the cornerstone of a Harpeth Hall education”; #14, “Our faculty average more than 18 years of teaching experience and 80 percent hold advanced degrees”; and last but not least, #29, “8:1: Our teachers know our students.”
Fast, dirty, cheap? I don’t think so…
😦
M. Schneider: I know that y’all in Louisiana are having just the most cagebusting EduExcellent times in your public schools [did I get that wrong from CrazyCrawfish?], but would you ever consider giving up all your perks and working in a place where you would be painted as “an educator, coach, mentor and friend” and lauded for being part of an “[e]xceptional faculty” and held up as a good example for holding an “advanced degree”?
Or could you be bothered to work in a school where there are eight students for every faculty member? Think of all the bother, students asking questions and larnin’ and sich…
I guess I answered my own question. Sorry, my bad.
Krazy props.
🙂
LikeLike
Great response!
LikeLike
Yes! Garbage craves garbage!
LikeLike
When I retired from the district where I’d worked for 30 years (as a National Board Certified Teacher, State Teacher of the Year and known instructional quantity), I offered to create, at low or no cost to the district, a mentoring program. It would be my practicum project, as part of a doctoral degree in Education Policy. The district needed high-quality mentoring, because a buy-out the previous year meant that many mentors had retired and 10% of the teaching staff was brand new, first-year teachers.
I planned to use a hybrid of best practices in mentoring, and even paid for my own training in a well-regarded national model. The district eventually turned my offer down, saying that they trusted Schools of Ed to train their new teachers so thoroughly that only “lite” mentoring (“where’s the copy machine?”) was necessary–and that principals should be in charge of PD for novice teachers, not their colleagues. Deep down, I think they were afraid that demanding more of mentors (who were and remain unpaid) would generate a demand for a stipend for mentors.
And so it goes–you get what you pay for.
LikeLike
You should start a business or a volunteer outreach, since they turned it down. Or offer it up despite the district (through the community or on your own). If you have that fire in ya, I wouldn’t back down. I think teachers will come around if you offer it (you could find a name for it that is independent of your district).
I encourage you to still try and see that vision through, in some different forum.
LikeLike
Bennet fell asleep watching TV and got brainwashed by an Outback Steakhouse commercial, “no rules, just right”.
LikeLike
Massachusetts is home to one of the teacher prep academies singled out for praise in the legislation. This grad school of education just for charter teachers encourages applicants to watch the following video as an example of great teaching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EC0ltKOwF_A
LikeLike
oh edushyster that VIDEO is SICKENING.
LikeLike
The video was a terrific example of the teacher transmission model which died as an appropriate approach eons ago. Notice the “cemetery style” that pervades the entire video – all lined up and silent. Where’s the enthusiasm for the topic, the motivating involvement of the students with the teacher, the small group work? Talking at kids like this is sure to make “the lesson” so boring that all the hand signals and other classroom management “techniques” demonstrated in this farcical display simply become the focus rather than the content that should be explained, facilitated, and absorbed.
LikeLike
And they call these brainwashed children scholars?
LikeLike
The blond female teacher looks like she is holding an auction or training seals at Sea world to jump through hoops. I’m sure those techniques are used on Malia and Sasha at Sidwell Friends.
LikeLike
I was thinking that teacher was doing baseball signals, but your idea is good, too.
I was bored stiff within two minutes of this video. And did you notice the discussion of “getting good grades” being the most important thing the student should be doing? Is learning important at all?
LikeLike
the putting out to pasture of old school teachers is because most are able to see that the emperor has no clothes. they want to create through these teacher academies funded by gates and arne, the tailors and promoters and launderers of the emperors new clothes.
LikeLike
They only want competent teachers for the elite who will run everyone else. The rest of us are indentured servants for their use and do not need to know much just to work hard for the elite to “Party Hearty” at the expense of all others.
LikeLike
Perfecty put, George.
LikeLike
It is “interesting” that when they purportedly want to make schools better because they blame teachers for student lack of success, but they want to provide the students with less capable teachers. It seems to me that the purpose is to first break unions, then undermine colleges of education and certification, rendering presently certificated teachers as “those who don’t deserve a degree”. They seem to want to eliminate any educational research or elements of pedagogy. I suppose they believe the all kids need is a computer and a chance to do what they please. It looks like the object here is to simply annhiliate the entire teaching profession.
LikeLike
It’s about control, power, and money over the workers. If the yahoos can control education, they can control everything. This is what is scary.
LikeLike
Read the Powell Memo. Neo-liberals have long aimed to stop the spread of liberal and critical thinking by controlling what occurs in colleges: What better way than to render colleges obsolete for the teachers of our nation’s children? http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/
LikeLike
This all looks very familiar:
The reformers say, “The schools are a disaster.”
Those inside the system, the ones who work there every day, say, “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
The reformers say, “No, you’re just looking out for your own interests. The schools are a disaster. And it will be too hard to change the existing system, so we’ll create a new parallel system. Charter schools, vouchers, virtual schools, we’ve got great ideas.”
Time passes. People start to figure out that the disaster story wasn’t entirely true. And when they look at the new things that have been created they discover they’re seldom better than the existing system and often worse.
The reformers say, “We never really said we were creating something better. We just said it would be different. But now we can’t turn back the clock.”
So now we start again: “The ed schools are a disaster . . .”
One of the goals of the reform movement that’s not discussed often enough is the de-professionalization of teaching. One of the hallmarks of a respected, well-paid profession in our society is specialized education, usually tied to a graduate degree. This bill is not about improving the quality of teacher preparation. It’s about making teaching a lower-status profession. Why? Because if the status is lower you can pay less.
LikeLike
As an elected school board member in Denver, Colorado, the under-the-radar, quintessential reform district, and as one of two remaining members who served under then superintendent Bennet, I would ask someone to ask the now Senator, who seems so intent on “accountability,” where is the accountability for him and his successor Tom Boasberg? Denver Public Schools is mired in a status quo of going nowhere. Eight years of reform and what do we have? Almost 40 new charter schools serving about 15% of the students (29% of the schools), a graduation rate of 58.8%, a remediation rate of 60%, professional teachers being dismissed at an unsightly rate, almost flat standardized test scores, and then there is the fiscal mismanagement of these two – guiding the board into a vast taxpayer funded swap deal which to date has raised the debt of this one transaction from $750 million in April 2008 to close to a billion five years later. This kind of leadership and management should definitely be emulated! The modern wonders of the business model going national. It is past time for people to wake up.
Jeannie Kaplan
DPS school board
District 3
LikeLike
Teacher Educators have not been silent. College professors and educational researchers have issued a number of open letters contesting corporate education “reforms,” including the closing of so many schools in Chicago: https://dianeravitch.net/2013/03/26/researchers-and-professors-sign-petition-against-chicago-school-closings/ They also booed Arne Duncan at the AERA conference last month because he refuses to listen to genuine educators.
This is not new. It’s just that the game has changed. In the mid 90s, when I first went into Teacher Education, Ed Schools had already been under attack for quite some time. I had long been a classroom teacher and I knew that going into Teacher Ed meant that I would suddenly be seen as the cause of the (manufactured) crisis in education, which had been promulgated by the Reagan administration with the 1983 shock doctrine of “A Nation at Risk.” That was followed by many subsequent attacks by conservative right think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation, so a number of reforms were made within Teacher Ed, such as by increasing numbers of Ed Schools opting to meet NCATE standards.
What many of us in Teacher Ed failed to understand then was how and why Democrats had gotten onboard with the Republican scheme to attack education and Ed Schools. It took awhile to realize that Democratic leaders had become very different from those who had been committed to civil rights in the 60s and 70s and predecessors like Jimmy Carter, who had sent his own daughter to a public school in Washington, DC. Democrats had, in fact, become every bit as elitist and neo-liberal as the GOP, as evidenced by the policies of the “centrist” Bill Clinton –from Walton country– who promoted TFA and linked it to his newly established AmeriCorps (and who also did more to cut safety nets for the poor than any Republican could have even dreamed of doing).
Now the cat is out of the bag. People are onto what the Democrats are all about today. Neo-liberal capitalists dominate both parties and, while they are in power, they will say and do virtually anything they can to wrestle whatever they see as a cash cow out of the hands of others. The target has long been education and they have been chipping away at it for decades..Now that they have succeeded in getting a firm foot in the door, they are going for the kill.
We really need to establish a Labor party in this country, before the 2016 election puts another Walton representative into the White House .
LikeLike
As a teacher educator who has worked in two urban institutions of higher education preparing predominantly minority teachers, I find the teacher ed bashing to be an extension of what is going on at the preK-12 level. The tired argument that university based teacher preparation is too theoretical and not practical, and that graduates feel their education was useless, gets constantly recycled. Most schools of ed are developing program features in response to state certification requirements, and innovation, when it occurs, is usually on a very small scale and due to some grant money. For example, the urban teacher residency programs sprouting up are promising in that they are attempting to fully reconsider where learning can be made most meaningful to preservice teachers, but they are too costly to run on a large scale, especially when universities are cutting back on expenses left and right. Meanwhile, the reformers watch a Doug Lemov video production and think they’ve got a goldmine – watch the 100% teachers and be just like them! It’s absurd, and it misses the most important element in learning to teach, which is learning to know and understand the students. Research has shown that graduates of teacher preparation programs at universities don’t fully appreciate the knowledge gained in their programs until they have been teaching for two years, when things start to click. If we could design their preparation without regard to cost…oh never mind, that will never happen.
LikeLike
In essence, Senator Bennett’s “plan” is no different than what other corporate-style “reformers” propose, and basically it boils down to this:
“We have to destroy public education (privatize it) in order to ‘save’ it.”
LikeLike
The teacher academies will be begun with corporations already in business. Kumon, Kaplan, Pearson, etc. wealthy people with money especially people from China and Turkey will be encouraged to bring their money here and open them as they have for charter schools. The Gates will open teacher academies etc. Soon other college majors,etc will follow suit.
LikeLike
This proposed legislation would affect and perpetuate low educational standards for generations to come. The future of our country would be in great peril. The preparation of our teachers needs to be held at highest standards. Ill prepared teachers can not prepare students for the minimum standards of good citizenry and challenges of the future. Standards need to be raised. Education is serious business. Without sound education, our culture will rapidly decline.
LikeLike
It’s back to the future. They are at best a reminder of the old normal colleges.
LikeLike