The blog “Seattle Education” interviews Professor Kenneth Zeichner about the “Relay Graduate School of Education,” which exists solely to dispense credentials of dubious value to charter school personnel.
The message “#rejectrelay.”
“Ken Zeichner is the Boeing Professor of Teacher Education at the University of Washington. He is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow at the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado.
“A former elementary teacher and longtime teacher educator in NY, Wisconsin, and Seattle, his work has focused on creating and implementing more democratic models of teacher preparation that engage the expertise of local communities, K-12 educators and university academics in preparing high quality professional teachers for everyone’s children.
“He has also challenged the privatization of K-12 schools and teacher education by exposing the ways in which venture philanthropy has sought to steer public policy in education, and the ways in which research has been misused to support the privatization process. His new book “The Struggle for the Soul of Teacher Education” will be published later this year by Routledge….”
It is a fascinating interview. It begins like this:
“As an introduction, could you explain for our readers: What is the Relay Graduate School of Education and why we should be concerned.
“Relay Graduate School of Education is an independent institution not affiliated with a legitimate college or university that prepares new teachers and principals and provides professional development services for teachers and principals to school districts and charter networks. It was founded in 2007 by three charter school networks (Uncommon Schools, KIPP, and Achievement First) within Hunter College’s Education School and became independent in 2012 changing its name to Relay Graduate School of Education.
“Until recently, its teacher preparation programs were all “fast tracks” preparing uncertified teachers who were fully responsible for classrooms after only a few weeks of preparation. Among those who they prepared were many TFA (Teach for America) teachers in NYC. Recently, they have begin offering a “residency” option in certain locations where during the first year of the two year program their teachers are not fully responsible for classrooms and are mentored by a licensed teacher. In both the fast track and residency versions of the program teachers receive a very narrow preparation to engage in a very controlling and insensitive form of teaching that is focused almost entirely on raising student test scores. Relay teachers work exclusively with ‘other people’s children’ and provide the kind of education that Relay staff would never accept for their own children. The reason that I use Lisa Delpit’s term “other people’s children” here is to underline the point that few if any Relay staff and advocates for the program in the policy community would accept a Relay teacher for their own children. Most parents want more than a focus on standardized test scores for their children and this measure becomes the only definition of success in schools attended by students living in poverty.
“The evidence is clear that the kind of controlling teaching advocated and taught by Relay has often resulted in a narrowing of the curriculum (1), and in some cases in “no excuses” charters, in damage to the psychological health of children as evidenced in research of Joan Goodman at Penn in Philadelphia.(2)
“We should be worried about Relay because it prepares teachers who offer a second class education to students living in poverty, and in my opinion based on examining the evidence, it contributes to exacerbating existing educational inequities in both student opportunities to learn and in the equitable distribution of fully prepared professional teachers.(3)
“According to their website, it appears Relay was founded by three charter
school networks: Uncommon Schools, KIPP, and Achievement First. Can you explain for our readers what student populations these charters serve and their approach to student instruction?
“These charters exclusively serve students living in poverty, most of whom are of color. Relay teachers also work in other charters however, and in some cases they may also teach in public schools.
“Relay originally received NY State approval when they were still part of Hunter College.They have used this approval and their accreditation by the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation the Middle States Commission on Higher Education Accreditation to gain approval to operate in other states. One could legitimately raise the question- how can a program gain approval from states and accrediting agencies that prides itself in having no theory, where few if any of its instructors have advanced degrees in education, and where much of what most people believe teachers need to know and learn how to do is missing from their curriculum, The answer is that Relay is very good at packaging and selling itself to others as offering successful teacher education programs despite the lack of any credible evidence supporting their claims. Their mumbo jumbo and smoke and mirrors game did not work however, in either CA or PA where the states ruled that Relay’s programs did not meet their state standards for teacher education programs.
“One of the more shocking parts of the Relay story is the use of Doug Lemov’s book Teach Like A Champion (TLC) as an instructional bible for the Relay program. Can you explain who Doug Lemov is and why TLC is such a toxic approach to student instruction.
“Doug LeMov is currently a “faculty member” at Relay and the managing director at Uncommon Schools, one of the charter networks that formed Relay. Lemov’s “Teaching like a Champion” is the basis for the Relay teacher education curriculum. These generic management strategies are highly controlling and are dangerous when they are the main part of what teachers receive in their preparation. Relay has argued that the choice is between theory or practice and that they focus on practice. This is a false choice, and while I agree that teacher education needs to focus on practice, and that some of these strategies are useful if they are used in the proper context, it matters what practices you focus on. Additionally, teacher preparation also has to provide teachers with theoretical background in learning, development, assessment, language, and so on. There is no attention to context, culture, or even subject matter content in LeMov’s strategies. There is also no credible research that supports their use with students.
“Relay’s list of philanthropic investors reads like a who’s who of education reform. The Gates Foundation is on the list, along with the Walton Foundation, and The Learning Accelerator – which is all about blended learning and the development of human capital. What do you think these groups hope to gain by supporting Relay?
“Yes, Relay has been heavily supported by philanthropists like the Gates and Schusterman Foundations and by venture philanthropists such as the New Schools Venture Fund as well as by individual hedge fund managers.(4) The funding of non-college and university programs that are linked to charter school networks helps these individuals and organizations further their goals of deregulating and privatizing public schools. As the charter networks continue to expand across the country and replace real public schools, there is more of a need for teachers who want to work in these schools that are often tightly regimented. Many graduates of professional teacher preparation programs in colleges and university do not want to work in these charter schools. Foundations that want to expand the proportion of charter schools throughout the country must help create a parallel set of charter- teacher education programs to prepare teachers for charter schools.”
When Cami Anderson was state-appointed superintendent for Newark Public Schools, she tried to impose Relay as the only source of post-grad credits that the district would acknowledge. Do any of Dr Ravitch’s community know if that’s still the case?
New Jersey reader, does anyone know whether Relay still has a monopoly on Newark Public schools’ credits?
I will ask around.
Relay is sly and positions itself among legitimate education schools. They tried to move into the education school at the University of Memphis but were stopped.
Here they are with the University of Michigan’s Teaching Works.
http://www.teachingworks.org/training/seminar-series/event/detail/relay-graduate-school-of-education
And their Dean is listed with prominent Deans of legitimate education schools.
https://deansforimpact.org/about-us/member-deans/
“Relay” is a product of school privatization . It is part of a greater movement to deprofessionalize education and bust the unions of legitimate teachers that have graduated from authentic institutions of higher education. Some charter schools use Relay to provide a quick easy stream of disposable staff members for their schools. Their emphasis on practice rather than deeper understanding about child development and multifaceted views on instruction is more like imprinting rather than learning. Students are expected to learn to get students to perform well on standardized tests, a narrow, false notion of “education.” As a result many Relay teachers struggle to survive in a real classroom as they have few tools in their toolbox with which to face the demands and challenges of teaching. Relay is also a reflection of the separate and unequal theme so common in privatization. Poor black and brown students are provided under prepared facilitators with a script rather than a well prepared teacher with a much wider breadth of understanding about teaching while white, middle class students are taught by legitimate teachers certified by the state. This lack of knowledge and limited independence may be one reason why charter graduates flounder in college.
Here is part of the problem with Relay’s accreditation. It is the accreditor.
“The Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) for “providers” for teacher education is the new accrediting agency created by merging the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC).
CAEP was created to please Arne Duncan who required that one master accrediting agency be put together for The Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grant Program. As of February 2017, The TEACH program offers grants of up to $4,000 per year to students who agree to teach for four years at an elementary school, secondary school, or educational service agency that serves students from low-income families. https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/sites/default/files/teach-grant.pdf
CAEP accreditation is jargon filled. Here is what it says it does.
“Educator Preparation Provider (EPP): The Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), the new 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.”
In effect, a traditional college degree with studies in education can be bypassed. The CAEP standards are filled with some of the same accountability demands and jargon inflicted on public education.
Here are few of the CAEP 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 – NASM). NOTE: I initiated correspondence to find out the accrediting body that CAEP recognized for visual arts teachers. The selection was the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, most with a marginal role in teacher preparation and no documents on K-12 art education since 1991.
CAEP standards are dated and clearly biased.
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 are examples of the detail required in annual reports.
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.”
Add this to the mix, from p. 27: “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.
Here are some of the other reporting requirements.
Measures of Program Outcome and Consumer Information:
A “consumer of information” is either an employer or an applicant.”
–Impact on P-12 learning and development (data provided for component 4.1)
–Indicators of teaching effectiveness (data provided for component 4.2)
–Results of employer surveys, including retention and employment milestones (data provided for component 4.3)
–Results of completer surveys (data provided for component 4.4)
Graduation rates
–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
CAEP thinks of teacher preparation as job preparation for a specific state and its requirements. It also thinks of the work of teachers as requiring a “commitment” to flawed practices and policies including the discredited VAM, SLO, and so on. CAPE honors bushels of test-score data and mastery of tricks of the trade–perfect for Relay.
CAEP does not value teacher education programs that prepare students for entry into a profession–an occupation that requires independent judgments, with critically informed practical skills, and adeep understanding of the ethical principle of “do no harm.” CAEP adds insult to injury by looking upon teaching as a matter of customer service..pleasing the customer especially their own students as prospective teachers and also the employers who will hire them.
Click to access final_board_approved1.pdf