Kenneth Zeichner is a professor emeritus of teacher education at the University of Wisconsin. He read the “Every Student Succeeds Act” closely and concluded that its provisions will be extremely destructive to the teaching profession and will lower standards for aspiring teachers. The act will however, benefit the reformers’ fast-track programs, so their candidates can bypass teacher education except in their own non-traditional programs, where charter teachers teach charter teachers how to raise test scores.
Zeichner writes:
There are provisions in the bill for the establishment of teacher preparation academies – and they are written to primarily support non-traditional, non-university programs.
In October 2013, I criticized a bill called the GREAT Teachers and Principals Act, known as the GREAT Act. It was initiated in March 2011 in conversations between leaders of the New Schools Venture Fund (NSVF); Norm Atkins, founder of the Relay Graduate School of Education; Tim Knowles of the University of Chicago; and several members of Congress.
The purpose of this bill was to provide public funds for promoting the growth of entrepreneurial teacher education programs such as the ones seeded by New Schools Venture Fund (for example, Relay, MATCH Teacher Residency and Urban Teachers) that are mostly run by non-profits. At the time, the CEO of NSVF was Ted Mitchell, who is now the U.S. under secretary of education….
Zeichner writes that:
….the provisions in the Every Student Succeeds Act that relate to teacher preparation academies have been primarily written to support entrepreneurial programs like those funded by venture philanthropists. These include fast-track teacher education programs such as Teach For America, Relay and TNTP, which place individuals in classrooms as teachers of record before they complete certification requirements. Typically these classrooms are in schools that serve students in high-poverty communities. Although there have been some changes in the language in since 2011, the provisions still serve to reduce standards for teachers prepared through the academies and will widen inequities rather than reduce them.
Zeichner picked out this doozy of a requirement:
A second provision in the new legislation that is troubling is the requirement that the authorizers of teacher preparation academies issue degrees or certificates of completion “only after the teacher demonstrates that he or she is an effective teacher as determined by the State, with a demonstrated record of increasing student achievement either as a student teacher or teacher-of-record.” This federal requirement of requiring states to include in their definition of effective teaching a demonstrated record of increasing student achievement is inconsistent with the rules of construction for Title 2 of the bill. These are specified in section 2302 (pp.407-408).
“Nothing in this Title shall be construed to authorize the Secretary or any other officer or employee of the federal government to mandate, direct, or control, a State, local educational agency, or school’s … teacher, principal, or other school leader professional standards, certification, or licensing.”
Requiring states to include a “demonstrated record in increasing student achievement” for program completion in academies (a provision in the original GREAT Act as well) is inconsistent with the intent of the bill to limit federal control over matters controlled by state authority. It also does not make sense to require this for student teachers, interns or residents who are not teachers-of-record and who complete their clinical experiences in the classrooms of experienced mentor teachers. Student achievement in the classrooms of nonfast-tracked teacher candidates will be mostly a reflection of the teaching of the mentor teachers.
And the worst provision of all is this one:
Another place where the legislation oversteps the authority of the federal government is to declare on p. 306 (lines 6-14) that the completion of a program in an academy run by an organization other than a university results in a certificate of completion that may be recognized by states as “at least the equivalent of a master’s degree in education for the purpose of hiring, retention, compensation, and promotion in the state.” The federal government absolutely has no business in suggesting what should and what should not count as the equivalent of a master’s degree in individual states.
No, that is NOT the worst provision. This one is:
The most troubling aspect of the new legislation in regard to teacher preparation is its attempt to lower standards for teacher education programs that prepare teachers for high-poverty schools. It does this by exempting teacher preparation academies from what are referred to as “unnecessary restrictions on the methods of the academy.” Here the federal government is seeking to mandate definitions of the content of teacher education programs and methods of program approval that are state responsibilities.
The so-called “unnecessary restrictions” that are most troubling are the inability of states to require advanced degrees for academy faculty in academies as they do for faculty in other teacher education programs (p.305 lines 5-6), to restrict the number of course credits in the program of study (p.305 lines 10-12), to place restrictions on undergraduate coursework as long as individuals have passed state content exams (p.305 lines 13-19), and to place restrictions related to program accreditation by an accrediting body (p.305 lines 20-22). All of these restrictions on states would interfere with their responsibility to define the content and methods of approval for teacher education programs and would set a lower bar for teachers who are prepared in the academies.
Imagine the federal government supporting medical preparation academies or other professional preparation academies where the faculty would not be required to have the academic qualifications required by the states and accrediting bodies.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well, this was a no brainer for the federal government:
Dumb down the institutions that are supposed to smarten up our up-and-coming teachers, and we will end up dumbing down our young ones K through 12. That produces the blind leading the blinder, and makes for an excellent plutocratic police state in which the general populace will not have enough thinking capacity or critical thinking skills to question the status quo . . . .
Brilliant, from the overclasses POV . . . .
Tragic for the populist masses . . . .
And we want to know why shootings are up and on the rise, as our society unravels and becomes desatiablized in its Darwinian trajectory.
“And we want to know why shootings are up and on the rise, as our society unravels and becomes desatiablized in its Darwinian trajectory.”
Exactly.
Robert and Ed,
Can’t agree with you on the “Darwinian trajectory”. No doubt that ignorant folks are easier to control but society is not “unravelling nor destabilizing” as supposedly shown by “shootings are up and on the rise”. Our knowledge of those shootings are magnified by the instantaneous nature of modern communications but the fact is is that now is the safest time in human history to be alive. (for an explanation see: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/history-and-the-decline-of-human-violence/) What appear be to minor upticks in violence of human on human violence as sensationalized in the lame stream and/or social media are not causal agents in the “unraveling and destabilizing of society”.
Now if we want to discuss the many harms of many of the current educational malpractices that make a mockery of any “fidelity to truth” idea in the teaching and learning process, I’m game but it still isn’t a “Darwinian trajectory”.
Yes, Duane, in human history, it is indeed a very safe time.
I spent a month in Sicily this past summer looking at all of these ruins of fortresses and villages from the Grecian empire, and all these people ever did was spend a lifetime figuring out how to protect themselves from conquering, plunderers and pillaging. It was a violent time just trying to survive. It was many an epoch of war, and not just in Sicily: land feuding, monarchs oppressing other nations and people within their own kingdoms, religious wars, colonialism, slavery, you name it. And it went on for a few thousand years.
However, in modern day America, which is still not as tumultuous as ancient Sicily, I still don’t think we are off the hook about violence, even if it is much less frequent.
When I think of all those unarmed youth, most of whom were black, who have been killed by the police . . . . When I think about Sandy Hook and Newtown, Connecticut, which are in my own backyard . . . and now when I think of San Bernardino, not to mention the dozens of college campus shootings in the past 10 years, I cannot help but think that America is a violent country and culture, and we will have many hard lessons to learn.
While I don’t own a fire arm, I can understand people who want to because they hunt, but I think high capacity magazine and semi-automatic instruments are a way to cheat when hunting. What’s the point?
Then there are those who believe the right to bear arms is critical because one day the government will come and get us, and we have to protect ourselves. While I don’t at all agree with that sentiment, I can say that nothing is impossible, and I empathize with those who think that way.
When I think of how the overclass in this country are behaving, all I can think of is “The Hunger Games”, which I posit is one of the most seminal pieces of contemporary literature ever to come about.
We are becoming ever more polarized; poverty is growing in this country, and big brother is watching you ever more. These are not the warring epochs of ancient societies and the Roman colosseum, but we are not off the hook by any far stretch of the imagination. We are a violent, machismo culture here in the States.
I believe these shootings are the seedlings of a revolution, and I can only hope I am completely and utterly wrong. Without being paranoid, I am very frightened by it all . . . .
Violence should never have to be used to effectively solve problems, but it is known to have effectively been used to solve problems throughout history.
Where does that leave our country and pretty diverse culture now?
These rules are not surprising the disdain the federal government has for professional educators. Imagine the feds making recommendations for dumbed down training for doctors, nurses, dentists, engineers etc. This seems to be another example of federal overreach as teacher training is not the responsibility of Washington, DC.
Their ignorance of what occurs in student teaching shows that this bill was written by those that are out of touch with reality. Most student teachers teach from eight to ten weeks, and part of the time is spent observing. Do they really think they can isolate a student teacher’s impact on students’ test scores? Again, student teachers practice in a public school that is run by the state, not the federal government. The feds have no standing to try to evaluate student teachers by test scores; it is an absurd idea.
What next?
Now YOU – yes YOU – can become a root canal surgeon in our new 8 week fast track program! Just listen to THIS testimonial:
(Man sitting contently next to his wife, who is showing off her new diamond pendant):
“I love my new certification in endodontic medical arts. The accredited academy I attended is brand new, and they gave me a thorough skill and drill – no pun – of how to get right in their, and get your hands dirty – I mean bloody – to yank them there roots right out! And all I needed was a high school diploma to enter the program!
But wait! There’s more!!!!
I can proudly and confidently say that I’ve killed only one patient from lack of sanitary preparation, but I know that for less than a third of them, I might, at most, ruin their bites or gums. I STILL come out ahead with more than half who have had successful surgeries!
Listen, if I went from driving a big rig to digging holes into people’s gum lines to pull out teeth, you can do it too!
If I can do it, YOU can do it!
Online Endodontic Charter Academy of Dental Hygiene and Preservation, I LOVE YOU!
(Wife puts her hand on man’s knee and flashes a smile along with him).
(Fade to Black).
Okay, Robert, this was hysterical, and you may owe me a new keyboard, since I spewed Diet Pepsi all over mine from laughing.
It’s black humor, but excellent.
Zorba,
You should not be drinking diet pepsi.
Try some freshly extracted pineapple juice mixed with chilled mineral water and a slice of lemon.
Ahh! The Artist at work!
Thank you!
Yes, very funny.
But, Christina, I was hoping you would join me in advising Zorba to lay off the artificial sweeteners.
In all seriousness, this move by ESSA is very tragic, and is a slam in the head to real educators and credentialed people. And of course, the feds are ONLY doing this with teachers and not other professions.
Hell! One cannot even deviate from police academy in order to become a police officer.
Personally, I’d like to tell ESSA to ES.
LOL! Robert, I like pineapple juice but I didn’t have any. I have a bunch of oranges, and an electric juicer. Will fresh-squeezed orange juice do? 😉
Zorba,
In with the fruit-based fructose and out with the Aspartame . . .
And I just ordered a case of juice oranges from a neighbor’s kid, who’s in 4-H.
Good for the county 4-H clubs, which sell citrus fruits as a fund raiser. As opposed to candy, cookies, etc. They are great oranges, we buy them every year. The 4-H citrus fruit sale is helped by the County Extension Agency.
(It’s not just the Aspartame, I wish companies would stop using corn syrup in foods.)
So now we are getting a better idea of how many legislators have actually read the legislation or had competent staffers read it. If you want to get bad ideas passed into law, just write a 1000+ page bill and push for rapid passage. What idiocy!
Idiocy is intentional . . .
The specifics of the provisions make it clear that it was special interests (Eli Broad’s Academy? TFA?) that were actually writing the bill.
Hmmm, where have we seen this before?
Ah, yes.
having the insurance and pharmaceutical companies write a health care bill.
Or letting the bankers write a bill to reign in excesses of banking.
To paraphrase Dick Durbin “frankly, the billionaires and Kopporations own the place”.
And make sure if you are the Democrats you can brag about bipartisanship. Because Wall St donors need to know Dem’s, like the R’s will have their backs when it’s time for ROI.
Unfortunately, the legislators’ staffers are from Teach for America.
GROSS and DISGUSTING indeed. It’s The Hunger Games …
Thank you Ken Zeichner for getting right to the worst of the worst, especially when most eyes are on how this is better for preK-12 than what came before. Now the question is, given the time frame, how do we make this highly technical teacher preparation BS understood by our senators who will vote in ignorance?
Oh, no. ESSA is not better for Pre-K. It’s just another way to kill Head Start and SPED and turn Pre-K over to the banksters:
https://preaprez.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/social-impact-bonds-are-just-another-form-of-privatization-bad-news-for-special-needs-students/
“Special education advocate Bev Johns has written here warning about the impact of Social Impact Bonds on special education services.
What are Social Impact Bonds (SIBs)?
They have become a favorite privatization tool of corporate Democrats and others.
Wall Street loves them.
Also known as Pay for Success programs in which Wall Street investors, often using funding from private philanthropies, invest in social programs which once were funded directly by the government. The aim is to reduce government costs by offering profits to Wall Street.
And Wall Street gets a pretty good return on that investment.”
I am sure that my ruminations on this will incite many negative comments, but I believe that Diane’s blog, “A site to discuss better education for all,” allows for civilized discourse and discussion. I hope this remains the case.
Usually, I am in 100% agreement with the posts and comments on this site. I do, however, pause and wonder about the overwhelmingly negative take on the ESSA’s provisions regarding the acceptance of the somewhat non-traditional entrance, acceptance, and approval of how an educator can join the public school system.
As with anything that comes via legislation, I think there is a slippery slope that needs to be kept in mind at all times. By insisting upon a traditional teacher-preparation program for all aspiring teachers, however, are we perhaps throwing out the baby with the bathwater?
In NYS, for example, you could be a Nobel laureate in physics yet still not be allowed to teach a high school physics course in a public school because you have not jumped through certain ambiguous hoops put forth by State Ed.
I know that I am biased in this, as I (finally) earned NYS certification via the “individual evaluation” path (http://www.highered.nysed.gov/tcert/certificate/transeval.html). This was a hellacious process, and I recommend it to nobody. The requirements I needed to fulfill in order to take a passion for teaching and a passion for science into a public school were not rigorous, consistent, sensible, or applicable in many ways. They made no sense in the grand scheme of teaching, unless the goal was to not “give up” regardless of the absurdity of the particular requirement.
I had a PhD in biology at age 24 and wanted desperately to teach in a K-12 setting because I loved science so much and thought I could “make a difference.” I started teaching in a prep school because I didn’t need certification to teach there (thoughts on this will abound, I am sure.) While teaching full-time, I took stand-alone courses on “Inclusion in the Classroom,” “Literacy in K-12 Education,” and “Adolescent Psychology,” to name a few. These courses were simply boxes to check. I probably should have thrown in the towel much earlier in the game, but I FINALLY earned NYS certification in 7-12 Biology and 7-12 General Science in 2008 (remember…I started pursing certification in 2001.) Throughout this time, I was a black-eye on my public school district, as I fell under the “not highly qualified” status on BEDS forms. The certification came after having made contact with a NY Senator who, shamefully, encouraged NYSED to pull my application out of their paper jungle in Albany and actually look at my credentials.
In being an effective teacher, it is the content-rich aspect of my education that makes me a successful teacher (at least as success is measured by observations in a private school setting, a pre Common-Core/test and punish setting, AND the current absurd evaluation system (whereby a 7th grade science teacher’s effectiveness is measured by the 5-8th grade ELA and Math score of her building.))
I am one of four siblings, and each of us is a NYS teacher (one sib is now an administrator.) I have the utmost regard for everything having to do with teachers, education, students, accountability, etc. (I mean no disrespect with the flippant etc., by the way.) BUT, I ask all of the educators out there who are reading this blog to reflect on whether or not your education courses in undergrad or grad school prepped you for your extremely important and successful role in the public education…or perhaps was it your time in the classroom and in the trenches that prepared and solidified your devotion? Maybe content, passion, and experience are better indicators of your success, rather than whether or not you fulfilled a “philosophy of teaching in an urban school” course as an undergraduate student?
Once again, I just want to express my respect and reverence for this amazing online place to discuss and debate. I sincerely mean to portray no disrespect toward anybody with regard to my “vent,” but I do think that we need to question the cocktail that makes an educator a great educator. A teacher-prep program isn’t the only course of action.
M,
I don’t disagree with you, but I wonder why a bill that allegedly restores state control of education tells states what their requirements should be for teacher education. I am betting on all those TFA embedded in legislative staff in Congress protecting their turf.
M, I did not follow a traditional type path to certification either, and a few of the courses I took were particularly awful. My graduate school courses that led to special ed certification were really pretty important. I had walked into a private school program with nothing more than an undergraduate degree in psychology; to say that I was in any way prepared to deal with a class of children, small though it was, of cognitively delayed, autistic, and/or learning disabled children would be laughable. When I went back into the classroom after a nine year hiatus raising children, I went in as a sub and then a paraprofessional. In those roles I finally got the practical experience to go with my advanced degree that gave me the courage to go back to the classroom full time. My career ended with a short stint in a low income, minority majority community. I loved teaching there, but the system was (and is) badly broken. I’m not sure anything could have prepared me adequately for that job, and I think there is a learning curve to any job. I don’t care how good a teacher is, there is always more to learn. My own convoluted route makes me leery of quickie prep programs (especially those driven by Gates’ agenda that ignores the expertise of career educators). There is a place for people who are experts in a particular field, but not without a carefully crafted program. The transformation centers ain’t it. The very name they chose for these programs reeks.
M, I too came into teaching later in life with advanced degrees and experience — I did a traditional program (not in NY), and no, some of the courses were not super-helpful (although the methods courses certainly were). It is true there is nothing like actual experience to get better as a teacher (I would say on year 9 I’m starting to figure it out….which is about 6-7 years longer than the TFA’ers stay in the classroom and upon which some proclaim themselves as experts!)
And, as the spouse of a private school teacher, I can tell many stories of “experts” with Ph.D.s in science hired without teaching certificates who were absolutely disastrous in the classroom (which private schools can ill afford to have).
And the fix for these kinds of problems is the exact opposite of what ESSA / TFA / Gates are promoting….I predict we will not see support and nurturing for those, like you and I, that are pulled toward teaching later in life, but for those who just simply want to take short cuts and take advantage of the purveyors of such programs, who are themselves simply in it to make a buck.
My son had a later in life teacher with a PhD in chemistry. He was clueless about teaching and how to run a lab with 20+ students. It was one of the worst classes my son had in high school.
Despite the denigrations and disdain of the reformistas, the truth is that the most effective teachers are polymaths. If you ask most parents how hard it is to raise kids, the answer you get is a variation on it’s-the-hardest-thing-I’ve ever-done. When people used to tell me that teaching was an easy job (short days, lots of snow days, summers off), I’d remind them I spent all day with someone else’s teenagers – and was trying to teach them content, too. That usually lifted the veil.
It’s not enough to have mastery of content knowledge if you can’t pitch it to the young people in front of you each day. And if you can pitch it, it’s still not enough if you can’t manage to run a Goldilocks classroom that is not too harsh, not too soft, but just right – for all of the 30 or so people, with their assortment of needs, who count on you. Everyday, in all the human variations possible.
Maybe a teacher-prep program can’t do all of the above, but no one should be allowed a classroom of their own without a practicum of several months under the wary eyes of a co-operating mentor teacher merely because one holds an advanced degree in one content area or another. I’ve seen that adventure fail numerous times and the losers are the kids who never get to redo that class.
M. – I’m not against alternate routes for teachers. What I am against, however, is the government’s blatant love affair for TFA, by grants from my tax dollars (even then the government was last shut down, TFA got a gift) and the way rules, regulations and laws are bent to allow TFA to proliferate. If you are an alternate route candidate, you still must attend classes and follow the rules and get certified for your subject. Not so for TFA. I don’t even need to go into all the B.S. that occurs for TFA to stroll in, with preferential treatment, and I believe THAT is what, at least I, balk against. 5 weeks of training at summer schools with 1st graders in order to teach h.s. science isn’t effective at all. TFA should not get preferential treatment, nor do I want my tax dollars going to Relay or TNTP or any of those special interests teacher programs while shutting out traditionally trained teachers, who actually WANT to be career teachers. What will be next? Funding the Broad Supes “academy?” Is that next for my tax dollars?
M, a Nobel laureate in physics would almost surely have great knowledge in the core content knowledge. Nobody would argue with that. If we want to reduce teaching to content knowledge then let’s just have people major in English to be English teachers and science to be science teachers. The reason we don’t do that is because most of us realize that teaching is a very, very complex profession. The practice of teaching is really difficult. How do you know when it’s best to have a discussion with your students as opposed to direct instruction? How do you ask good questions to your students to ascertain what they know and to determine whether they have current knowledge or misconceptions that you need to address? A person with great content knowledge may not be able to, “coordinate and adjust instruction during a lesson in order to maintain coherence, ensure that the lesson is responsive to students’ needs, and use time efficiently. This includes explicitly connecting parts of the lesson, managing transitions carefully, and making changes to the plan in response to student progress.” And that’s just while teaching an individual lesson. Teachers must be able to explain concepts and information and modeling thinking and implement practices for making a all sorts of content, academic practices, and strategies explicit to students. That doesn’t just happen because you won the highest award for content knowledge. Please allow some room for pedagogy and the science of teaching. This work is difficult and is far more valuable than your comment seems to suggest. Sure, smart people can learn some of this teaching practice on the job, but that assumes that it’s ethical to put someone in front of a class of students while they learn the ropes for a year or 2 or 3 or more. Kids should not be guinea pigs. Yet, that’s what these quick alternative routes to teacher preparation seem to assume. It’s disheartening to me. Kids deserve more. Kids deserve professionals.
Diane,
I am beyond delighted to hear your thoughts on this. I have so much respect for you and your perspective. As is the case with most things that have to do with government and effective implementation of successful initiatives, I think that it always comes down to money. If we had an adequate number of well-paid examiners who could objectively assess whether or not a person can be deemed sufficient enough to be a public school teacher (a role that I believe should be of the utmost importance…copious amounts of capital should be spent on the investment of our future), this would a be a non-issue. I wholeheartedly agree with your caution in weaving into legislation the ability to take a TFA pawn and deem him/her a highly qualified educator (where could that lead???). But, I worry about the flip side, with regard to passionate professionals who want to get into education and share their expertise being denied entrance. In the long run, I think that I err on your side of the argument, but I just feel sick to my stomach when I think of the numerous passionate people out there who would be amazing, non-traditionally-prepped educators. Again, it comes to the slippery slope. I err on the side of no death penalty because of the “what ifs.” I err on the side of “YES” to any public assistance, due to the many who do not abuse the system. I guess that if we cannot devote the resources to individually assess each situation, I have to err on the side of being critical of ESSA stipulations. I do, however, feel that we are going to be turning away many individuals who could have an amazing impact on our children. Sadly, we can’t have it all. Thank you for your comments on my thoughts. As a teacher in NYS, I look to your blog for sanity and reassurance.
GATES AT WORK All of these provisions comport with this
SEATTLE (November 18, 2015) – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced it will commit $34.7 million over three years to five newly-formed Teacher Preparation Transformation Centers that will bring together higher education institutions, teacher-preparation providers and K-12 school systems to share data, knowledge and best practices.
These cooperatives will develop, pilot and scale effective teacher-preparation practices to help ensure that more teacher-candidates graduate ready to improve student outcomes in K-12 public schools.
The five Teacher Preparation Transformation Centers are:
0. Elevate Preparation, Impact Children (EPIC), led by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education;
0. National Center for Teacher Residencies (NCTR);
0. TeacherSquared, led by the Relay Graduate School of Education;
0. TeachingWorks at the University of Michigan; and
0. University-School Partnerships for the Renewal of Educator Preparation (U.S.PREP) National Center, based at Texas Tech University.
“We know that having an excellent teacher is critical to a student’s success, but there is still much to learn about how to best prepare teacher-candidates to be successful in the classroom,” said Vicki Phillips, director of College Ready Education at the Gates Foundation. “We’re excited to fund these new Teacher Preparation Transformation Centers so that together, we can better understand which practices are the most effective in preparing new teachers.”
The announcement represents the foundation’s first investment as part of its teacher preparation strategy, which launched in April 2015 and is focused on supporting programs that:
0. Give candidates authentic opportunities to build and refine their skills;
0. Commit to continuous improvement and accountability;
0. Ensure that those who prepare new teachers are effective; and
0. Are shaped by K-12 systems and the communities they serve.
In addition to the Transformation Centers, the foundation is awarding a grant to the Teacher Preparation Inspectorate, US, which will provide feedback to Transformation Centers and their member providers.
While the Transformation Centers will be guided by a common set of indicators and outcomes, they will test different approaches in unique contexts to better understand which practices are most effective.
EPIC will engage all 71 initial teacher preparation providers in the state of Massachusetts to deepen quality of field-based experiences, support data-driven analysis, and integrate the efforts of providers and partners to meet the increasing demands for teacher talent in the pre-K-12 sector. “Given that improvement in teacher performance is steepest at the beginning of an educator’s career, advancing individual teacher readiness prior to entry into the profession holds great promise for long-term impact with students,” said Mitchell D. Chester, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which is leading EPIC.
NCTR will focus on transforming teacher preparation through the adoption and expansion of teacher residencies and clinically-based programming. “The residency model has the power to transform teacher preparation and NCTR will utilize the Gates Foundation Transformation Center Initiative to continue to propel this important movement in teacher preparation. NCTR is excited to be a part of this exciting work to advance teacher residencies and clinical preparation,” said Anissa Listak, Founder and Executive Director of the National Center for Teacher Residencies.
TeacherSquared will work with a group of innovative teacher preparation programs to share knowledge, create communities of inquiry, define the skill sets of teacher educators and analyze data from which the field can learn “For far too long, programs dedicated to training novice teachers have worked mostly by themselves to make their programs great,” said Dr. Brent Maddin, who will lead TeacherSquared. “We aim to increase sharing among these programs and to challenge, inspire, and support them to reach even higher levels of greatness.”
TeachingWorks will offer direct professional support to staff members in the other Transformation Centers, lead the development of practice-based assessments for novice teachers and help the Centers disseminate their learnings through a digital resource center. “It will take a wide variety of partners and teacher preparation programs serving diverse communities and students to ensure that all new teachers are well prepared, and that all students receive excellent instruction,” said Dr. Deborah Loewenberg Ball, director of TeachingWorks.
The U.S.PREP National Center include six universities committed to transforming their practices in partnership with K12 school systems. According to Sarah Beal, who will co-lead the U.S.PREP National Center, “Sharing, collaborating and learning from one another not only shows that we are models of learning, but also that we are taking responsibility and holding ourselves accountable for preparing classroom-ready teachers.”
“For too long, teacher preparation providers have not supplied the teachers students deserve,” said Tom Stritikus, deputy director of innovation on the College Ready team at the foundation. “We’re excited to work with these programs to learn how we can better prepare teachers to help students succeed, and we look forward to sharing our findings with the entire field.”
To learn more about the Teacher Preparation Transformation Centers initiative and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s education strategy, please visit: collegeready.gatesfoundation.org
Gates Foundation + Relay Graduate School =Toxic Teacher Ed
The more I read about the ESSA re-write, the more concerned I am.
Ditto. Every day some new commentary points out another flaw. Legislators must hate people who read the bills. Keep reading people.
Legislators hate people who can read — period.
It’s jealousy.
This makes me sick. The teacher shortage is due to disrespect and cannot be fixed by more TFA-like crap. Trust me, I’ve had tons of them in my school and while they are nice people, they suck up resources and then leave, for the most part. Or, I have to waste energy documenting their inability to teach (which usually happens because they don’t like the kids and I want them out). Pay certified teachers more! Pay certified teachers in Title 1 schools even more!
When I was in grad school in another state, I was hired by a district to “coach” two TFAs as they were failing miserably and apparently the support they got from TFA was not helping them improve. One was nice enough, and tried hard, but she eventually realized that she was not cut out for teaching and quit part way through the year. The other was not nice, was certain of his superiority over me (a lowly certificated public school teacher working on her doctorate at a public university), and clearly expected that he should just be able to wave his little finger and the kids would do what he wanted. Needless to say, this did not happen. Never once did he ever look at himself as the problem. Instead it was always the kids. If the kids had done this, if the kids would just listen… I documented everything, and next thing I knew, he was PROMOTED to the central district office to run professional development because he had a degree from an Ivy League college. A huge slam to all the properly certificated teachers and admins in the district – a wanna-be newbie was promoted to handle PD for a job he was completely incapable of doing.
WA teacher: “…next thing I knew, he was PROMOTED to the central district office to run professional development because he had a degree from an Ivy League college. A huge slam to all the properly certificated teachers and admins in the district – a wanna-be newbie was promoted to handle PD for a job he was completely incapable of doing.”
I know that guy, too! – except I think mine is in a different state, and he just got his job this September. Ooo, maybe there’s more than one.
Christine,
I think those types somehow magically reproduce in a faster fashion than we realize as I’ve heard, read about these types and there all over the place. But boy oh boy are they sure “smart”.
Since some provisions within the bill are in conflict with other provisions, is it possible that a court case can be filed?
Diane, I thought you would be interested in this:
“The United States has made great strides over the past few decades in increasing the educational attainment of its populations. Millennials are the best-educated generation in American history and the baby boomers were themselves much better-educated than the “greatest generation.” This means that the share of high school dropouts has greatly declined and the share of college graduates in the population has sharply increased.
One consequence of this is that we have massively improved the educational credentials of people living below the poverty line, as shown by this great chart from Matt Bruenig of the progressive think tank Demos:”
I think the “education cures poverty and income inequality” folks probably move the goalposts now and claim one of two things- 1. people are studying the wrong things, or 2. people have higher educational attainment but the quality of the credential(s) is lower.
Blaming public schools for wage stagnation and income inequality is SO popular ( and so convenient for politicians and other powerful people) they’ll really be loathe to give it up.
http://www.vox.com/2015/12/4/9845066/education-poverty-chart
Clearly, the Feds have several top notch team of industrial psychologists who worked on the ESSA, and I am serious about that.
The Feds want to shape education culture, and they ultimately could not do it with federal overreach. So now they are getting the 50 states to do their dirty work for them by offering them “choice” as to how teaches can be educated and certified.
The game plan here is that if there are districts who are being cited for low scores, they may become motivated to hire the sort of teacher who has a certain kind of branding and who has a proven track record with raising scores, and this teacher is likely to come from one of these sham academies that produces the “equivalent” of a Masters degree.
Remember that in order to receive full certification, such “teachers” going through these programs will have to have shown an increase in test scores, from pre-test to post, standardized and otherwise. Personally, I am a fan of internal, formative assessment growth, and really would like to remove the weighting of standardized instruments, because while they are extremely efficient (excluding the time they take to give and score), they are chock full of threats to internal and external validity, and are just not good enough, nor ever will be in their present design, to be used to really gauge learning and teaching.
To give a standardized test that measures true student growth, there would be too many items, the test would be even longer (going from the frying pan into the fire, therefore), and it would not be feasible to administer. A test that is comprehensive would offer multi-modalities of demonstrating knowledge, and it would offer a broad range of skills and tasks. The human range of capability is far too expansive to be accurately captured by our current standardized tests, and that is why such metrics have noticeable but limited use and purpose.
Anyway, when enough of these new fangled teachers become employed in a school, they will shake things up, and other current teachers will want to change to become like them and teach, teach, teach to that test or they will want to leave for other pastures if available. The pressure alone will cause those things to occur. How could it not, in most instances?
This is all a brilliant psychological ploy to get public schools to change the way they teach. I suppose the only thing that can overcome this is the removal of high stakes consequences. But this is nonetheless a ploy from the Feds to manipulate the psychodynamics of schools that are, under current definition, low performing.
Meanwhile, there is no talk about increased funding to schools with hight pockets of low income children. NONE!
As usual the solutions are incomplete, slanted, and full of ulterior motives.
However, the ESSA does provide from some hefty defanging and declawing of Federal overreach, and that is a good thing.
The fight is still far from over . . . .
ACTION IS NEEDED NOW, TODAY, ASAP! http://follow.education/2015/12/06/down-to-the-wire-on-essa/
I agree, Professor Miletta.
Please tell Zoila Tazi I said hello . . . .
BTW, I loved the blog, Professor Miletta, and will probably check in on it periodically.
One problem they will have to work around…with low scoring populations test prep and drill has limited utility. When the wonder workers arrive, the previous wonder workers may have already milked the test prep gains. The schools will still be on the bottom and all the wonder workers will fail. The sham factories will have to wear the failure mantle or else a new loophole will have to be created for them…A massive Ponzi scheme that can not last long will be unveiled before us.
So sounds to me like this is the philosophy of the new “ed reform” strategy… if you want to “kill the beast” cut off its head… not its extremities because this only results in a slow death and fast death is desired. Why deal with children and the teachers who educate them when you can eliminate the professors who teach the teachers who teach the children!!! And then they add a professional PR spin to it and “package” this as AN IMPROVEMENT as if they are heeding to the cries of parents and educators! God forbid (no pun intended) we get a “Ted Cruz” type for president… one can only imagine how he would redesign curriculum – creationism above all and banning Darwin!! “Demonstrated” teacher effectiveness under this “new and improved plan” would involve a recitation of creationism by a student. Ughhhh!!!!
An article in EdWeek about the Gates Foundation grants for teacher education included an expression of “frustration” that university deans cannot fire faculty at will, that faculty governance exists in higher education, and so on.
The clear intent of this round of Gates funding is to remove the concept of academic freedom from faculty engaged in the preparation of teachers, and to reduce the work of teachers to the production of test scores that fit within the parameters of Bill Gates criteria for “effective teachers.”
It is clear to me that he now wants to exercise complete control of teacher education and that Congress, together with some faculty and Deans in higher education, are perfectly fine with ceding control of education to a Gates-funded “Inspectorate” under the banner of accountability.
The Inspectorate paid for by Gates is a perfect complement to the financial support given to Relay Grauate School, the 71 teacher education programs in the state of Massachusetts and other grantees.
Gates succeeded in promoting the adoption of the Common Core. He now wants to install his limited definition of “effective” teaching in as the new national norm for teacher education. He is being aided by federal policy (likely shaped by the revolving door from USDE to the Gates Foundation) and he willrobably put in as much money as it takes to get teacher education standardized to fit his ideology and definition of effective teaching. There can be no doubt that he wants to eliminate independent judgment and thinking about the education and that he is counting on faculty in higher education to comply with his vision.
I think your analysis is spot on, as usual, Laura. Here’s a link to a prescient post from 2012 by Barbara Madeloni on the intrusion of outsiders and for-profits into the university through the door of teacher preparation:
http://academeblog.org/2012/09/14/the-hard-sell-and-the-educator/
Laura, please send the link to the article in EdWeek that you mention.
Laura,
Bill Gates is a hideous monster, and his disability has empowered him to become almost superhuman because when you combine an inability to part with rigidity and can never accept democratic elasticity . . . when you combine those traits with a LOT of money, it makes for a 60 year old “enfant terrible”, and I just hope someone will one day seriously stop him. Bill Gates needs severe messages sent to him because those are the only kind of language someone like him understands . . .
He and his wife are inappropriate, and have no business in our business . . .
“Another place where the legislation oversteps the authority of the federal government…:
The entire bill oversteps the authority of the federal government! The Department of Education oversteps the authority of the federal government! There is NO mention of education in the U.S. Constitution…there is nothing that grants the federal government any rights or powers with regard to education. And the 10th amendment clearly states that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” So why have all the states blindly accepted this usurpation of powers by the Federal government?
I think that is why they have tried to frame their arguments as an issue of civil rights.They can mess with all kinds of things through this back door. That is why showing that charters have led to increased segregation and the weakening of educational opportunity for those in public schools is so important. Charters have no intention of educating everyone, so they are vulnerable to a civil rights attack from public school advocates. They will be vulnerable to the same sort of argument if their Macteacher academies do not turn out a respectable cohort of minority teachers.