Professor Kenneth Zeichner of the University of Washington has studied and written extensively about teacher education.
In this interview, he sharply criticizes the “independent teacher prep programs” that have sprung up in recent years to provide newly minted teachers for charter schools. The most conspicuous example of such a program is the Relay Graduate zschool of Education, which claims to be a graduate school but has none of the requisite features of a graduate school. No scholars, no studies of the foundations of education, no concern about Research. In effect, this school and others like it focus solely on discipline and test scores.
“Instead of making the status quo permanent by increasing the supply of under-prepared, inexperienced, and short-term teachers in high-poverty schools, we should seek to eliminate this situation. We should invest in a high quality college and university system of teacher education as has been done in leading education systems in the world. We should provide greater incentives for fully certified, and experienced, teachers to work for more than a few years in schools attended primarily by students living in poverty. Finally, we should make sure that the public resources in these schools and communities are comparable to those in wealthier communities.
“Relay currently promotes itself as a solution to teacher shortages, especially shortages of teachers of color. While they may have increased the percentage of teachers of color in their cohorts, they do not present retention data or evidence that they actually are contributing to solving the problem of teacher shortages or shortages of teachers of color. Most of their teachers are prepared in and for charter schools, and there is no public data as to where they teach post graduation, how long they stay, and how well they teach beyond the hand-picked testimonials they advertise.
“The teaching shortages in districts throughout the U.S. are real and very troubling, but fueling the pipeline with uncertified and underprepared teachers isn’t the solution. Most scholars who have studied these issues such as Richard Ingersoll of the University of Pennsylvania and Linda Darling Hammond of the Learning Policy Institute, conclude that the shortages result from teacher attrition more than the underproduction of teachers, and that attrition is a consequence of low teacher compensation and benefits, poor induction and working conditions, as well the general blaming and shaming of teachers for the problems of society and the accountability systems that have been developed reflecting this view.
“What we need to do is to improve teacher compensation and working conditions, including access to high quality teacher professional development. We also need to ensure that the pre-service preparation for teaching they receive is of high quality.
“The shortage of teachers of color is also a serious problem, but it won’t be solved by investing in entrepreneurial programs like Relay. Subsidizing the preparation of teachers in the public universities that prepare most of the nation’s teachers as is done in other leading educational systems in the world will create the conditions for a well-prepared, and more diverse workforce.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
One of the great ironies of teacher preparation was that I learned that teachers should not lecture from a lecture. Teacher training should be a longer process that extends into the early years of a teaching experience. This would be a part of bringing teaching back into a place of respect in our society.
When anyone argues that teachers need “…access to high quality teacher professional development…” my radar starts beeping. BEFORE invasive test-based teacher “trainings” became mandatory, I attended many classes which were useful for teachers. However, after NCLB and R2T dictates were made obligatory for lowest-scoring schools, I was told to attend multiple meetings, trainings, workshops and all-day seminars and saw little but an amazing amount of wasted time and an amazing amount of wasted money. Teacher training cannot be at the behest of test-making companies and top-down test-score-punishment-bent administrators.
Love this comment.
“I was told to attend multiple meetings, trainings, workshops and all-day seminars. . . ”
YEP! You were being “Professionally Developed”. Did they use a high-quality paper?
Of course they probably did. For that certificate they gave you to show that you were properly Professionally Developed. Hot Damn.
Got reprimanded more than once for grading papers, reading books and/or otherwise not paying attention while being Professionally Developed. When I did pay attention, I’d ask questions that the presenters did not want to hear and boy did I get some real nasty looks by all the powers that were-the adminimals and brown-nosing teachers. Never got sufficient answers neither.
One of the best times was when the district brought in an “expert” to explain the CCSS that was being implemented the next year. Now in the first five minutes she spouted all of the lies-developed by the states, teacher developed, age appropriate, best thing since sliced bread, and on and on and on. WOW! Luckily I had a book about haunted houses, strange lights and pet apparitions in the Ozarks to read. During one of the “Okay, discuss with the members at your table the CCSS. . . ” I kept reading. The presenter came over and literally leaned against me for about a minute or a minute and a half. I ignored her and kept reading. I thought it in my best interests to not engage her as I would have called out her lies and I just didn’t have the energy at the time as I was dealing with health issues-it was the end of my last year. I think the adminimals were all relieved that I did what I did.
Doncha luv being professionally developed?
Relay Graduate School of Education is on the way to having several Ph.D.s. If the new crop of Ph.D.’s serve as Deans, Relay will have changed it’s long-standing practice of excluding legitimate scholars from leadership positions in its large enterprise known for offering minimalist short-term teacher training, primarily for jobs in charter schools.
Here are three Ph. D. candidates, all participating in the July 2018 two-day “Educator Summit” in Philadelphia.
Jennifer Francis, senior dean of Relay New Orleans, earned a M.Ed. in curriculum and instruction and an Ed.S. from National Louis University, as well as a dual B.A. in Black Studies and American Studies from Scripps College. Francis is currently a doctoral candidate at the Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California.
Rebecca Good is founding Dean of Relay Connecticut. She earned her B.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, M.A. in Educational Leadership from Teachers College, Columbia University and currently working on her doctoral degree in Global Education at the Rossier School of Education, at the University of Southern California.
Mayme Hostetter, Relay’s national dean, oversees teacher preparation programs at all Relay campuses. She has an A.B. from Harvard, an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and is a doctoral candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University.
The forthcoming Educator Summit is co-sponsored by the Relay Graduate School of Education and Dr. Angela Duckworth’s Character Lab program. The Character Lab promotes eight specific character “strengths” grouped broadly as strengths of Will, Mind, and Heart.
WILL includes
–Grit (identifying with experts as models of endurance, seeking mastery based on practice),
–Self-Control (showing will-power, achieved through a WOOP strategy of clarifying and picturing of Wishes Outcomes, Obstacles, and Plans) and
–Growth Mindset (believing that you get smarter with hard work, optimistic goal-setting).
MIND includes
–Curiosity (pursuing interests) and
–Zest (showing enthusiasm, seeking joy).
HEART includes
–Purpose (knowing your special goals),
–Gratitude (thinking about positives, showing appreciation), and
–Social Intelligence (adapting behavior to context, regulating emotions, understanding others).
The Lab sells teaching resources for these strengths. The Lab is now offering coaching for the Relay Graduate School of Education where most Teach for America candidates are trained in five weeks before entering schools with teaching responsibilities.
I do not know how the Character Lab training will mesh with the tradition of requiring Relay students to master Doug Lemov’s no-nonsense techniques for teaching. Lemov’s techniques emphasize compliance with rules. Even so, it is not hard to discern that Character Lab’s programming for Relay, evident in the forthcoming two-day Educator Summit, will be treating “character” as a matter of self-discipline, and aspiring to “the best” in the manner of experts in competitive sports, and with lessons about success in the corporate world.
Major speakers at the two-day Educator Summit sponsored by the Character Lab and Relay include:
Geoffrey Canada, Harvard graduate who established the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) in 1970. HCZ is now serving about 13,000 low-income children and their families from birth through college, all enabled by federal and private grants, an endowment of about $145 million and annual income of $75 million.
Dan Heath, a skilled self-promoter and social entrepreneur, and Senior Fellow at Duke University’s Change Academy. Dan has an MBA from Harvard’s Business School and is co-author, with his brother Chip (Graduate School of Business at Stanford) of three New York Times business bestsellers. DECISIVE offers a four-step process for making decisions (Widen Your Options, Reality-Test Your Assumptions, Attain Distance Before Deciding, and Prepare to Be Wrong). SWITCH offers three steps each for three main tasks in planning change, telling others getting others exactly what they should do, insisting they do it, and instilling habits of compliance. MADE TO STICK: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die offers six chapters on how to sell ideas, products, services by stripping away the “Curse of Knowledge” (scholarship, research, facts).
Also featured on the program is a three-person Brave Enterprise consultancy on “Bravery in Action: Practicing Assertive Behavior as a Way to Increase Competence, Confidence and Courage.” One consultant holds a Master’s degree in communications from Boston University and Bachelor’s degree in electronic media from Southern Methodist University. She is a PR expert and coach of a national qualifying middle school step team. Another has an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and a Masters in Public health from George Washington University. She is former Division One collegiate athlete, and currently a high school coach of lacrosse. The third is a graduate of Princeton University, a World Cup winning lacrosse player, former owner of several lacrosse companies, and successful university lacrosse coach.
Another speaker’s bio features his collegiate accomplishments in football, and work as a coach before earning a Ph. D. in experimental social and personality psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a Research Associate Professor in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, where he directs the Motivate Lab. He is a fellow at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and former fellow at the Center for Advanced Study of Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.
There are two more speakers who address “expert performance.” K. Anders Ericsson, is co-author of Peak: The Secrets from the New Science of Expertise” (2016). I have not read the book, but Ericsson’s research has focused on measuring “expert performance” achieved through “extended deliberate practice” and “cognitive mechanisms.”
Gabriele Oettingen, Professor of Psychology at New York University and the University of Hamburg, author of “Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation” (2014). Her Ph.D. is from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology in Seewiesen, Germany. She is best known for work on Mental Contrasting, a self-regulation technique tied to positive attitudes, high self-efficacy, and a strong goal commitment with expectations of success. Behavior change also depends on having a goal attached to a highly valued incentive.
Based on the speakers and programming for this Educator’s Summit, I conclude that the alliance between the Character Lab and Relay Graduate School of Education will not change much. Fast-track training of Teach for America recruits and booster shots for TFA’s at various stages of their careers has a tradition of honoring Doug Lemov’s no-nonsense techniques of classroom management. Lemov’s techniques focus on student compliance with rules set by the teachers. That regimen is justified by claims about setting high expectations for students, and mastery through repeated practice of a kind not distant from being an athletic “champion.” The dicta in Lemov’s book, titled “Teach like a Champion,” strike me as gaining some scholarly fortification from the speakers selected for this summit.
The ideologues from TFA and Relay will parade their claims of being well-trained in the orthodoxy of Duckworth’s Character Lab (and the Protestant work ethic) as the key to success in school and life.
I have not found a clear place for truth-telling in the Character Lab. Why is that?
https://www.characterlab.org/ed-summit
Hi Laura, please contact me. I would like to discuss your comment with you.
Great interview with something to think about in every sentence. This quote applies to my university’s teacher training program.
Teacher education provided in U.S. colleges and universities has been routinely criticized since its inception in the early nineteenth century, sometimes deservedly. Just as independent programs, college and university programs are uneven in quality and can be improved. One improvement would be to change the mindset that is also prevalent in independent programs that it is the teacher’s job is to try to save students from communities of poverty. Instead, we need to teach teachers how to learn about the funds of knowledge and expertise that exist in their students’ communities, how to access those resources in support of student learning, and how to work with and for students’ families and communities and not on them.
Unfortunately, Relay is in Memphis, since Memphis is a great experimental ground for these crappy teacher prep programs due to our highest poverty rate in the country.
I wonder why none of these articles ever mention that US teachers are way overworked compared to other countries’ teachers. For example, US teachers spend almost twice as much time in class than Finnish teachers: 1100 hours per year vs 600 per year.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/09/oecd-teacher-salary-report_n_5791166.html
Whenever they talk about low salaries of American teachers, this fact also needs to be mentioned.
Long hours in the classroom is insane, because it’s next to impossible to stay enthusiastic 6 hours per day—especially with having only 5 minute breaks between classes.
Many people in this country evaluate teachers’ work based on how many hours teachers spend in the classroom, and they say “You guys are home by 3pm, and you have all summer off, so you have it easy compared to what I have to endure.” This sentiment often makes teachers feel guilty.
What is forgotten in this data-based judgment of teachers’ work is that teachers have to show enthusiasm every single second during work while others can afford to be in a bad or just indifferent mood as they calculate, draw, write, stare at a computer screen all day long.
A teacher’s job requires a top athlete’s energy and enthusiasm, and this needs to be recognized. None of the professional basketball or football players train 6 hours a day, and they have long off-season breaks, but nobody tells them, they are lazy and they have an easy life. Nobody is surprised that athletes retire at age 30, while dedicated teachers will stay in the job till they are 65.