While there has been much talk about the needs of teacher education, the “fixes” now center on Arne Duncan’s misguided belief that teacher colleges should be evaluated by the scores of the students taught by their graduates. This is a long stretch of causality and is sure to encourage these institutions to advise their graduates to apply to teach where the challenges are lowest. Here is another point of view, written by James D. Kirylo. He is an education professor and a former state teacher of the year. His most recent book is titled A Critical Pedagogy of Resistance. He can be reached at jkirylo@yahoo.com
Teacher Education:
The Path Toward Educational Transformation in Louisiana
It is said that education is the great equalizer. Yet, we know when it comes to resources, opportunity, and the quality of a teacher, not all educational experiences are equal. Then we react with a bevy of voices coming from a variety of corners on how to better equalize the great equalizer. To be sure, when making sense of gray matter, complexity, and multi-layered challenges inherent in education, the solutions are not easy.
Yet, when it comes to navigating through this entangled web, a leading thread to direct that charge ought to have the name “teacher” at its pinpoint. There are few absolutes when it comes to education. And of those few, one is this: There is positive correlation between a high quality teacher and student success.
It is, therefore, logical that if we want to move toward educational transformation, we need to ensure that teacher education is right up there on the priority list. It is no coincidence that high achieving countries, like Singapore, South Korea, and Finland are quite selective as to who teaches their youth, how they prepare those who are to teach their youth, and how they maintain ongoing development while teaching their youth.
That a common thread in high-achieving countries is an elevated priority on teacher education ought to raise our collective sensibilities, stirring movement toward embracing that model right here in Louisiana. To that end, the following summarizes what we need to qualitatively do in our backyard if we expect to move toward long-lasting transformative educational change:
One, entrance requirements and processes into teacher education programs need to be more rigorous and more selective.
Two, those who are accepted into teacher education programs should be provided tuition waivers, grants, and other incentivizing initiatives.
Three, teacher education programs across the state must be creatively innovative, systematic, and unified in which not only content knowledge is emphasized, but also concepts, practices, and theories related to human development, pedagogy, curriculum, and learning are thoroughly explored in light of the diverse country in which we live.
Four, field experiences and rich mentorships are emphasized that works to connect the thoughtful relationship between theory and practice.
Five, upon graduation, teacher candidates leave their programs with great expertise, expectation, and adulation as they move into the teaching profession.
Six, once in the classroom, teachers regularly engage in ongoing and meaningful professional development, with them at the center of facilitating that endeavor.
Seven, the school curriculum in which teachers teach is wide-ranging, with an inclusive priority on the various arts, physical education, and foreign language.
Eight, when it comes to curricula, assessment, and evaluation decisions at the school setting, teachers are integral members at the table.
Nine, at the school setting, a test-centric focus has to be abandoned and replaced with a learning-centric focus that is energizing, inspiring, and imaginative.
Ten, students, teachers, and schools are not in competition with one another, but work to cooperate, collaborate, and lift each other up.
Eleven, all schools, regardless of location and economic demographic have equal access to quality resources, material, and high quality teachers.
Twelve, the teaching profession is viewed with great respect, indicative of the competitive salaries, the working conditions in which teachers are placed, and how teachers are professionally viewed, treated, and honored.
Thirteen, a top-down hierarchal structure needs to be replaced with a teacher leadership empowerment structure.
Fourteen, “fast-track” teacher training programs, such as TFA and LRCE, are not acceptable routes to teach our youth.
Fifteen, the waiving of requirements for those going into administrative type roles are not acceptable routes to work in leadership positions in our schools, systems, and state.
Sixteen, only well-prepared, qualified, and certified teachers from high quality teacher education programs must teach our youth.
While there are certainly some examples of good efforts occurring in teacher education programs in our state, we are not doing near enough. Without doubt, if we are to move toward educational transformation in Louisiana, the systematic prioritization of teacher education is a must, the fostering of the professionalization of teaching is vital, and ultimately education must be viewed as an investment in which the entire state can be richly furthered. Indeed, our international friends have provided us with an outstanding model.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes james a nice thought but i think today generation is very forward all the study books and video are easy to find on internet.
I know Dr. Kirylo is referring to his state of Louisiana in his point-of-view in this post, but I know that in the state of Ohio there is a resident educator program that is still young and growing. The actual attempt at mentoring has been around for a number of years in Ohio, but has undergone some serious changes in the past five years or so to provide a more robust learning experience for new teachers.
Dr. Kirylo referred to systems outside of the USA. Why not look inside within our own borders, country and state, to learn who and what others are doing to improve teacher education? Why must we always point to the usual models of education systems outside of the U.S. when there must be some models somewhere in the next district or state?
When scholar after scholar includes these international models, aren’t we more or less saying that our own collective systems are not worthy to look at? I think we limit ourselves by not utilizing our own strengths and resources, while continuing to learn from our global friends. Are we beginning to believe what our critics have been saying about teachers, and that we have nothing to offer each other in support of our own growth as professionals?
Excellent point, Pearl essence.
This 16 point plan and discussion gets it wrong from the get-go. It affirms the correctness of looking off-shore at “high-achieving countries” to improve education here, especially teacher education. What on earth does “high achieving mean?” It seems to mean getting high scores on tests.
Then there is this “There are few absolutes when it comes to education. And of those few, one is this: There is positive correlation between a high quality teacher and student success.”
Not answered is what counts as “success.” Success seems to be conflated with high test scores. In addition, we have another case of confusing correlation with causation and omitting the important fact that teachers contributions to test scores are in the range of 1% to 14%…with current methods of calculating these “impacts” by the flawed but hard-to-kill VAM methods of rating teacher “quality.”
I understand the effort to offer an alternative view of teaching, but this 16 point plan seems to me damaged by repeating two many canards, in addition to forwarding the idea that there are no excellent models, practices, places where exemplary teaching and conditions of work of teachers can be found without looking off-shore. Look first to the schools attended by the children of Gates and the Obamas, for example.
Laura, doesn’t your last part imply that we should look elsewhere, even if not overseas? I doubt if many of the teachers there came through the traditional programs.
I agree, we’re not Finlanland or Japan. And there are pockets of excellence. But they are not mainstream.
At least in my area, math, we can learn from other countries about how to teach for understandinding. Ironically, they learned from us while we were doing the testing thing.
What is this urge to find the holy grail of teaching? Has Finland or Singapore wowed the world with their incredibly creative, knowledgeable populace? Just who do we think is going to pay this core of super teachers (or they are going to be just as “stupid” as the rest of us and do it “for the kids”). What is this super teacher going to look like and why do we think that we can pop them out ready to go? In contrast, I keep hearing about the scourge of bad teachers that suck the life blood out of our students. All of this angst feeds the corporate model of disruption. Wipe it all out and build a model they can feed off of. How about we look at our strengths and build on those?
Kirylo is right. I think one of the most important takeaways from Building a Better Teacher is that that few teacher ed programs focus of teaching itself beyond lip service; some faculty actively shun it. It’s the opposite of what the other countries do. I sense some hypocrisy we we (correctly) blast the TFA 5 1/2 week training.
So we get a widespread ethos among even veteran teachers and certainly the system that teaching is not an evolving craft that develops over a career.
That’s not faulting teachers – it’s how teaching is viewed and treated.
But it begins in teacher ed programs.
But I don’t think that’s true of teacher ed programs in general. That was one of the parts of the book I was confused about. If I were to make a critique of teacher education programs generally, I think it might be that they are often too “practical,” focusing more on Lemov-like lists of techniques, and less on the human and social values of teaching and learning. One of the interesting distinctions drawn in the book was learning to problem-solve (as, for example, the Japanese students who are challenged to add two fractions with unlike denominators – with no explanation) vs. learning a procedure (as what we are told is the more typical American approach in which the teacher demonstrates the procedure for adding two fractions with unlike denominators, then has the students carry out the same steps). What difference does this distinction make to students’ investment in their own learning, their ability to think for themselves, their eagerness to solve new problems in the future? What, in short, does it mean to be educated? These are, to my mind, philosophical and ethical questions, not just practical or procedural questions. I think future teachers would be well served by extended opportunities to engage with them.
I too think everything should not be “practical”. But I think most “theory” courses are sketchy. So are content courses, like Math for Teachers.
Green points to the now defunct normal schools and recent forays into residencies. Apparently in other countries the candidates enter the internships with strong foundations in content. They also spend a lot of time under supervision before being turned loose.
More like good nursing programs. Not the online kind.
“One, entrance requirements and processes into teacher education programs need to be more rigorous and more selective.”
Define “rigorous” and “selective” please. Are we talking test scores? As I’ve said about a million times now, there’s nothing inherent in being “smart” that makes one a better teacher. I have no idea how we could screen potential teacher candidates in advance for whether they would potentially be “good” teachers. The proof is in the pudding. The thing is, teaching is a highly self-selecting field, so the majority who aren’t good teachers remove themselves from teaching before we even need to worry about evaluation. The main thing I’d suggest is to start working student teaching opportunities into the program much earlier and continue practical experiences throughout. It does seem a waste for someone to go through four years of schooling only to realize at the end that teaching is not for them.
Yes, I agree. We need to look at what we do have and make it stronger and more enduring. A good teacher doesn’t pull what we need from just one resource to build a powerful learning experience. So must we as a collective group of people pull from many different resources to build a more powerful teacher ed program.
I was about to post the same thing, Dienne. I am tired of the insinuation that teachers “come from the bottom of the barrel.” At my medium-poverty school (35% free and reduced lunch), the vast majority of the faculty graduated from college with a 3.5 or higher GPA. And the teachers I know from other schools are incredibly smart, well read, and continually learning and improving their craft.
Plus, there’s a LOT more to teaching than content knowledge and the grades of the teacher. Some who may have had lower grades in college are incredibly gifted teachers who know how to reach students.
Threatened, you have a good point. There are sharp, smart teachers. I teach high school math and have taught graduate courses to all levels of K-12 teachers, particularly hands-on math.
I’ve taught some with little math backgrounds who grasp ideas easily and deeply. But there are some whose math skills should bar them from a math classroom.
So while we celebrate those who can, we can’t avoid dealing with those who can’t. We do that gently,of course, but we have to do it.
@ Dienne – excellent point. Being “selective” on the basis of standardized tests is a fool’s game. The tests in common usage are offshoots of tests once banned for their use in denying teaching jobs to minority candidates. They continue to serve in that way.
Laviator, straight up standardized tests are a bad idea as a sole criteria.
Interestingly enough, the NFL uses Wonderlic test as part of evaluating prospects before the draft, but the use a lot more.
I’m not suggesting a 40 yd dash, but couldn’t we come up with a better to screen applicants?
The great problem might be that we don’t have a firm idea of what we’re predicting – what the measure of success is.
The assumption is made that ther is no screening of applicants, but that is simply not true of good preparation programs. There are screens for admission and many screens for exit. What is insane is to impose single test criteria and cut scores as many states have done. As a person responsible for developing and maintaining an assessment system, it is agonizing to watch it being destroyed by edicts from people who know nothing about screening and developing the evidence to support it.
The idea of being a full, first class member of a community will itself be a new experience unless schools of education create a different ambience–where teachers of ed and students are engaged in shared professional tasks, where new teachers become novice, apprentice members of a real profession. Rad Jay Featherstone’s book on an effort to do just this in Michigan. It’s a very special account of what could be.
The autonomy of almost all teacher education programs is threatened by USDE’s proposed policies for evaluating these programs and USDE’s stranglehold on accrediting agencies for teacher education programs.
The vice grip from USDE comes from the fact that students seeking federal grants or loans for entry into teaching must enroll in an accredited teacher education program.
Who determines whether a program is accredited? USDE. How many accrediting agencies meet USDE’s criteria? Two. One is reserved for preparation of Montessori-certified teachers.
The other approved accrediting agency is CAEP, the newly formed Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation with standards written to please USDE officials. CAPE was formed by merging the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and the Teacher Education Accreditation Council.
Now we have CAPE’s one-size fits all standards, USDE approved, for almost all teacher prep programs.
CAEP standards apply to “any entity responsible for the preparation of educators including a nonprofit or for-profit institution of higher education, a school district, an organization, a corporation, or a governmental agency.”
CAEP standards are filled with the same accountability demands and jargon inflicted on Pre-K-12 public education.
In effect, the kind of academic freedom that once prevailed as the norm for teacher education is vanishing. It has been overtaken by jargon from CAPE and USDE’s insistence that teacher education programs be evaluated by the same flawed measures imposed on K-12 education.
The test scores of public school students will be linked to the “teacher of record” for each subject and grade, and those test scores will be linked back to the program responsible for educating that teacher and to the employment records for school districts.
Teacher education programs will be rated on how successful their graduates are in raising test scores, including growth measures (VAM, SLOs), placements of graduates in “high needs” schools, and more.
CAPE agreed to meet these and other USDE conditions for teacher education, but added its own jargon-filled standards. Teachers are called “completers.” Teacher education programs are “providers.”
Here are few of the CAPE standards.
“1.2 Providers ensure that completers use research and evidence to develop an understanding of the teaching profession and use both to measure their P-12 students’ progress and their own professional practice.”
“1.3 Providers ensure that completers apply content and pedagogical knowledge as reflected in outcome assessments in response to standards of Specialized Professional Associations (SPA), the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), states, or other accrediting bodies (e.g., National Association of Schools of Music ).”
“1.4 Providers ensure that completers demonstrate skills and commitment that afford all P-12 students access to rigorous college-and career-ready standards (e.g., Next Generation Science Standards, National Career Readiness Certificate, Common Core State Standards).”
“1.5 Providers ensure that completers model and apply technology standards as they design, implement and assess learning experiences to engage students and improve learning; and enrich professional practice.”
Here is a sample of the detail.
CAEP Standard 4.1, p. 13) “The provider documents, using multiple measures, that program completers contribute to an expected level of student-learning growth. Multiple measures shall include all available growth measures (including value-added measures, student-growth percentiles, and student learning and development objectives) required by the state for its teachers and available to educator preparation providers, other state-supported P-12 impact measures, and any other measures employed by the provider.”
This is an outrageous sacrifice of professional integrity, enabling VAM and SLOs live on as if these are credible measures.
“Impact” is jargon of the day “Measures of completer impact, including available outcome data on P-12 student growth, are summarized, externally benchmarked, analyzed, shared widely, and acted upon in decision-making related to programs, resource allocation, and future direction.”(p. 27).
Reports for the accreditation process must include:
1. Impact on P-12 learning and development (data provided for component 4.1)
2. Indicators of teaching effectiveness (data provided for component 4.2)
3. Results of employer surveys, including retention and employment milestones (data provided for component 4.3)
4. Results of completer surveys (data provided for component 4.4), also
—Ability of completers to meet licensing (certification) and any additional state requirements (e.g., through acceptable scores and pass rates on state licensure exams)
—Ability of completers to be hired in education positions for which they were prepared
—Student loan default rates and other consumer information (“Consumer” means applicant or employer).
CAPE, like USDE, relies on “accountability” as a cover for propagating invalid, unreliable measures of teachers and teacher education programs. Cape is enabling USDE to completely standardize and control public education, not just cradle to career for this generation of students, but also teacher education. USDE’s policies. aided by CAPE, are transforming an honorable, and often life-long profession, to little more than a “get-paid-for-raising-test-scores” job.
USDE and CAPE policies reflect the triumph of technocratic “theories of action” and data mongering over a long legacy of independent and reflective thinking about what is worth teaching and why—thinking informed the experience and wisdom of persons who have earned the respect of their peers.
In my opinion, the authors of the CAPE standards, and those who agreed to them, have trashed the very idea of professional integrity in teaching. If teacher education program want aspiring teachers to get federal grants and scholarships then they must comply—reify data, endorse VAM and SLOs, plug into teacher education the Gates-funded Common Core Standards, speak of providers and completers…and impacts…a terrible word for the work of nurturing minds and inspiring this generation.
More detail at:
http://caepnet.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/final_board_approved1.pdf Comments on regulations for evaluating teacher education programs are open until Feb 2, 2015. https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/12/03/2014-28218/teacher-preparation-issues
Laura, thank you for your detailed explanation of all that is evil in CAEP standards and the coming federal regulations. Those of us in teacher education are also troubled by the heavy handed new licensure exams, which are of course having a negative impact on the effort to develop a more diverse teaching force, particularly for urban schools. My latest group of student teachers helped me write this parody of the ALST, one of the worst of the new exams: http://alexandramiletta.blogspot.com/2014/12/tis-season-for-mudslinging.html
“Five, upon graduation, teacher candidates leave their programs with great expertise, expectation, and adulation as they move into the teaching profession.”
I certainly want new teachers to enter the classroom with confidence in their ability to teach, but adulation? What the heck does that mean? It sounds vaguely like entering the football stadium to cheering crowds, high kicking cheerleaders, and a cloud of confetti. Seriously?
I am also with Dienne in being skeptical of what is meant by “rigorous” and “selective.” Far too many potentially talented teachers might be screened out too early in the game. Sometimes those who were not “good” students turn out to be inspiring teachers not in spite of but because of their own experience as students.
Dienne is right on when she suggests making internships a part of the program from early on so the practical and theoretical meet before the final year. We lose too many teachers early in their careers (and are doing our best now to drive out the vets).
I can’t directly reply to Peter Smyth above, but yes, I agree that medical or nursing school would be a good model generally for educating teachers. I’d like to see the route to teaching go something like this: 1) Earn a B.A., not necessarily in Education (for secondary teachers especially, a B.A. in their content area could be better). 2) Enter a two-year master’s degree program in Education. 3) Spend the first year as a student, but spend the second year as a student teacher with a half-time teaching load for the first 3 quarters. The other half of that time would be spent continuing to take classes and receive mentoring. 4) Spend the last quarter student-teaching full time. Essentially the whole last year would be the teacher’s “internship.” Best would be if this were at a college/university-affiliated demonstration school, which could be the equivalent of a teaching hospital, structured to give student teachers the opportunity to observe and discuss lessons as well as to teach them.
I agree with Dr. Kirylo here that one way to make such programs more competitive would simply be to offer scholarships, grants, or (I like this idea best) a stipend for second-year master’s degree students, so they have something to live on while they teach and finish school. Entry to teaching could look more attractive to more people if it came with less debt and more income. Which would mean more applicants & programs could better pick and choose, using whatever criteria they deem fit.
I don’t think you can discuss whether education schools should be more selective without discussing (1) the demand for spots at such schools and (2) the K-12 job market. If applications to ed schools are high or rising, or if there is a glut of K-12 teachers in the job market, then arguably it makes sense to make the admissions process more selective. But if applications are low or falling, or if there’s a shortage of teachers, then what sense does it make to raise admissions standards?
Also, raising admissions standards would almost certainly have the effect of making students at ed schools more white and more affluent. I don’t say that to condemn the idea necessarily, but it’s something to consider for anyone who thinks the teaching workforce should be more, and not less, diverse. From a policy perspective, “selectivity” is arguably inherently elitist and racist.
Flerp! One other thought I’ve had rattling around. What if some programs get more selective, greatly enrich their programs, and even does an intense residency? What happens to the graduates? What systems are prepared to take advantage of the better training and additional skills? Creating master teachers can create great people problems.
For that matter, how does the system support innovative, highly talented teachers?
The angle that I never read about in these discussions is the misconception that whatever and however subjects are taught are at the complete discretion of the teacher.
I went through a great teacher prep program that taught me to use standards as a guide and to be resourceful for myself whether using a textbook or creating my own materials, then developing my own formative assessments to check student progress. Loved the creativity and problem solving and felt real ownership of the process. My first years as a teacher were marvelous – kids loved all the integrated projects and parents loved that their kids loved school. One state test a year with no stakes attached.
But real life in public schools these days does not allow for this approach to teaching. Districts select programs/curriculum and teachers are mandated to use them and stick together as a grade level team (no cultivation for superstardom). I was hired at my current school to specifically use a certain commercial program for literacy and have been advised not to alter it (enrich with my own ideas) because they want to know if the program’s worth continuing more than what effect I can have as a teacher.
So how is this supposed to work with the VAM models applied to teachers or to teacher prep institutions? I am not even ‘allowed’ to use much of my own teacher creativity or what my training taught me. The assumption is that we’re all independent mavericks – making it up on our own as we go and need some sort of accountability measures to keep us in check (or value us more – hahaha) – but the reality is that we’re mostly drones already anyway. How is hiring someone else from a different prep college to teach the same district mandated math or literacy program going to change student results?
Excellent point.
I ran into the same rigidity in using a program I piloted for a Special ed application. Initially under my first highly qualified supervisor, I had the flexibility to differentiate for individual student needs. However, when Data King entered the picture with no special ed experience and no relevant content area expertize (his teaching was in a non-tested subject) all of a sudden I was supposed to follow the model rigidly. Of course, no one informed me of the change or asked me for my opinion. They just used it as an excuse to “not rehire” me. (Actually, they routinely fired 3-4 year teachers to save money.)
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
It is no coincidence that high achieving countries, like Singapore, South Korea, and Finland are quite selective as to who teaches their youth, how they prepare those who are to teach their youth, and how they maintain ongoing development while teaching their youth. Why is the U.S. under G.W. Bush and then Obama going in the opposite direction?
Exactly, Lloyd. And we know better.
As Chiara has pointed out several times, many “high achieving countries” like Singapore and South Korea (but not Finland) achieve their “success” because of tutoring industry which soaks up a large portion of the average family’s income. These tutoring programs are exclusively drill-and-kill test prep programs that kids spend hours a day grinding through. The U.S. should be running as fast as possible away from such model. Unfortunately the U.S. is running full-tilt toward that part of the Singapore/South Korea model.
Thanks for this. It is good that those who seem to have had some experience teaching and have gained some insight from this are being able to have their voices heard, albeit so far only in limited forums. It’s a start.
Having taught myself for now most of the past thirty seven years, I have my own views on teaching and perhaps also on teacher-education. But I will not elaborate on these here.
But, to sound a perhaps slightly contrary note, I think that we would be well advised, as a country, to try to lower the temperature, pressure or whatever be the metaphor of choice in the field of K-12 education. This would apply not only to high stakes testing, with all the limitation and devastation that causes, but also to the unproductive emphasis on “great” teachers — and so also on supposedly “bad” teachers.
By extension, I would be wary, as well, of the too-often-misguided attempts to “produce great teachers”, be this via teacher education prior to entering the field of teaching (no doubt a good idea, but perhaps far removed from the reality of practice) or via the relentless and often useless and distracting “professional development” that is anything but.
The flip side to the “producing great teachers” charade is the campaign to get rid of the “incompetents”.
At first, on the face of it, who can argue against, or reject, a package that purports to promote “great” teaching and also eliminate or reduce of “poor teaching”?
However, if one bothers to lift up the covers, one finds a grim reality, in which such endeavors end up doing far more harm than good. This is not a criticism of the article posted, which makes many well-considered points, but rather against the way that even viewpoints and policies that might have some merit take on the garb of religious zealotry and are imposed in a top-down fashion — as unreasonable, rigid and highly destructive diktats — by the educational hierarchies and/or the political (and now business) establishments. The writer of the article does allude to some of these things, for which we should give him credit be grateful.
I am not suggesting that we should do away with teacher education or even “professional development”. I agree with most teachers that programs such as “Teach for America” which do away with many of the educational requirements, probably have done more harm than good. While it is important that bright, knowledgeable and enthusiastic people be recruited into the profession, this does not seem to be the right way to go about doing this, with most such recruits only remaining, in any case, a few years in the teaching field (far fewer than what’s needed even to begin to understand its complexities and challenges in the current environment in most schools in this country).
But perhaps too much has been made of both traditional teacher education (which does have its strengths but also its weaknesses) and, even more, of the great hoop-la and jive that have been replacing it.
Teaching, at least of those who are still children, is akin to parenting in many ways. Just as it would behoove us to be wary of dictating to parents regarding their parenting, so also we should perhaps exercise at least a quarter of as much caution in dictating to teachers how they should teach. Of course, the two situations are not identical, granted.
Teaching, especially in the higher grades and in the colleges, but even starting from the first grade onwards, also involves the transmission of the structured disciplines, mostly, in practice, those of academics, such as mathematics and the natural sciences, but also of others, such as music and — until fairly recently — trades such as carpentry. Each of these disciplines has evolved ways of transmission and propagation. It might be best not to interfere with these.
While there may perhaps be general “laws” or at least “principles” of teaching and learning that might underlie all such human endeavors, if these are indeed present and are capable of being formulated in a general fashion, they will be unlike those of physics in that they will allow for a great variety of modes and expressions of creativity. Humility is too often lacking among those who seek to “reform” or systematize K-12 education. Hubris, indeed arrogant disregard for the labor and opinion of practitioners, is too often evident.
That said, my thanks to the writer of this article, who will probably agree with quite abit of what I have said, and to Ms. Ravitch for posting it on her useful, indeed essential, blog.
I just read an article about the potential profit to be had in the education market that require disrupting our understanding of teaching and the delivery of education. I am in total agreement with what you say, but it does not fit the needs of corporate reformers who intend to standardize education and teaching so they can scale it up and spit it out like bags of potato chips. They have to be able to define “the best” in order to build a profitable, reproducible model.
Such blasphemy! Create a program that allows only those most suited to the career of teaching into teacher training programs? Take care of teacher quality concerns at the front end so there’s no need for the permanent cash cow of VAM based evaluation systems year after year? STARVE the testing industrial complex? What will the politicians think when a reliable source of their campaign contributions dries up? Disruption is fine for schools and kids but please keep it away from our shiny new cash pipeline! The status quo of reform must not be disturbed! Harumph Harumph…….
It seems to me that we have been fired upon so often by the paintball weapons of the reformistas that we have begun to believe that the splotches of colors on our clothing were put there by ourselves.
Paintball 1: Teachers come from the bottom of the barrel.
Response 1: Let’s tighten up and not let stupid people be teachers.
We’re not stupid people. Teaching well is arguably the most demanding of the professions. Look at what realms of knowledge we have to master: subject matter, pedagogy, child psych, adolescent development, world affairs, economics, human relationships. And we have to develop our own lessons, buy our own supplies, stay current on and analyze and implement (or circumvent) whatever innovation threatens to steal our limited time and derail our teaching, and pay for classes so we can continue to hold our professional certifications.
Paintball 2: Teacher prep stinks
Response 2: Let’s make it harder, long and more costly
When did schools of ed stop requiring field work? I graduated from a private college’s teacher prep program 40 years ago (yikes!), and had to carry a double major – in secondary ed and in my subject area. Beginning in my freshman year, I worked in public schools each semester in addition to my classes and a part-time job. I student taught for all of my first semester senior year, carrying a full load of classes under the supervision of my co-operating teachers. I obtained my masters during the 3 summers of my first years in the classroom. I supervised several student teachers and nearly all of them had similar experiences. I think my experience was the norm. Am I misinformed?
Paintball 3: Other countries do it so much better
Response 3: Let’s do what they’re doing
No one else does what we do. We provide a free public education to all children from K (or maybe 1 ?) through 12. We are an enormously diverse nation, with a variety of heterogeneous ideas, religions, languages, customs and cultures. There is no bar to public education – no fees for tuition or uniforms or exams to allow children admittance to the school house door. We don’t keep homeless or undocumented or non-English speaking kids outside the classroom. We fight to be sure that “your tired, your hungry, your poor” get to “lift the lamp beside the golden door” through education. We are anything but complacent that we can do it better, and we here on this blog are willing to rage against those who for money, for profit, are trying to dismantle this cornerstone of our democracy.
I think that lost in all of the “teacher preparation” talk is an equally important part of the solution: Principal (manager) training. Those who evaluate us are often weak, inexperienced teachers that ran away from the classroom. The old school principal who spent 10 to 20 years teaching and really understood the business seems to have become a thing of the past. The glut of “insta-pals” is a serious problem that gets little press. And when the “bad teacher” problem is really a “bad manager (principal)” problem, why is not more attention being paid to this? Bad teachers, though few and far between, do not interview themselves, they do not hire themselves, they do not observe and evaluate themselves for 3 years (and beyond, they do not grant tenure to themselves, and they will never document their incompetencies and file a 3020a on themselves, nor will they ever counsel themselves out of the profession. Lets start talking more about principal training as it certainly is a very weak link in the chain.
NY, absolutely. And principals more than ever should show successful experience teaching meaningfully; otherwise they can’t see or even imagine what good teaching looks like – or support it.
In my district, there is a push to make some schools “Montessori”. I strongly support Montessori as a choice, and done well, it’s powerful.
But the district finds it ok to place principals in these schools who have never taught or been trained in Montessori. See a few problems?
And they slip into place with little to no accountability.
The only problem with getting better teacher to become principals is that most of the really good teacher I have known have little desire to leave the classroom.
For sure. We also lose good teachers from the classroom.
So I think we need to redefine what principals do – stop calling them “instructional leaders”. Ironically, back in the day, when coaches often became principals, things could work fine – they didn’t pretend to be experts in teaching and let some strong teachers take care of business.
I think we also have to develop the idea of master teachers, exemplars and leaders, and remunerate them. But that’s real tricky.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
Prepare teachers to be professionals and then let them do their job? What a concept. Though the comments went astray a bit I agree with James’ premise. Also the book is worth a look: A Critical Pedagogy of Resistance. Full disclosure . . . I wrote a chapter in it. If I was to write it now I think it would be more of a labor of urgency rather than an academic endeavor. If I knew then what I know now . . .