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Illinois School Board Journal
July/August 2007
Connie Goddard of Evanston, Illinois, a historian of education with a particular interest in teacher preparation, has also written about education for numerous local and national publications. This is the second in a two-part series on teacher preparation.
Evidence of the divide between school districts and colleges of education resides, in part, in the disparities between principals and deans on how teacher preparation can be improved. Though a caveat with the way the studies were conducted applies, the findings gathered by the most recent report on the subject, Educating School Teachers, indicate limited agreement on needed improvements.
Educating School Teachers was authored by Arthur Levine, a former president of Teachers College at Columbia University and now head of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation in New Jersey, and was released in September 2006.
According to the report, principals and deans were given a list of nine proposals to improve teacher education and asked to choose the three most important. The rates at which principals chose certain proposals suggest more agreement among them than among deans. Principals most often chose:
The deans' responses were far more varied. Only 13 percent chose striking a better balance and just 23 percent wanted to require longer student teaching. But 70 percent of deans advocated mentoring new teachers.
What is particularly intriguing about this set of figures is that the proposal most frequently selected by both deans and principals is the responsibility of the other!
Principals believe a better balance between content and practice would improve teacher education, but curriculum is the responsibility of deans. And, as noted in part one of this series, district officials are unlikely to be consulted about it.
Though the discrepancy between the two is not so great regarding the need for better mentoring practices, many more deans than superintendents chose it as a way to improve teacher quality. As Educating School Teachers points out, comparable professions regard induction as the responsibility of employers rather than of colleges. Though colleges of education often discuss the need for more mentoring and induction, their graduates are so scattered, it is unrealistic to expect them to assume that responsibility.
Not meeting at the nexus
Another distinguishing feature of Educating School Teachers is its emphasis on field experiences — that nexus between colleges of education and school districts. Teacher candidates, it suggests, should spend more time in schools, being supervised by highly competent teachers, and these practitioners should work in close conjunction with college faculty. All four of the teacher education programs the report singled out for praise are characterized by this close connection between practice sites and college curriculum.
Ideally, teacher candidates would spend part of the day in district classrooms then return to their college classrooms for discussion of what they observed: what they did, how successful it was, and how they could improve their practice.
However, accomplishing this recommendation on field work is problematic. One high school principal, responding at a conference where Levine spoke, said he had a "mini-revolt" on his hands: his teachers felt inundated by too many requests for field placements. Then when student teachers did arrive, they were only modestly prepared for the work.
Similarly, a school district official complained that colleges of education keep sending her more of what schools do not need — high school social studies teachers — and not enough of what they do need — special education teachers and bilingual teachers.
Unfortunately, Educating School Teachers offers few insights into how school districts can better accommodate an increase in teacher candidates — but neither do other recent reports on the role of field placements in teacher education.
Studying Teacher Education, published in 2005 by the American Education Research Association (AERA), included a chapter on field placements. All its reported studies, however, were conducted from the professor of education's point of view, not that of the school district. Similarly, a 1996 AERA handbook on teacher education, which also includes a chapter on field placements, ignores how such provision is regarded by school districts, principals and teachers.
Nevertheless, Educating School Teachers' nine "criteria for excellence" in evaluating teacher education programs emphasize the pivotal importance of what school districts and individual teachers should contribute to teacher education. Of the nine criteria, five are largely dependent on better collaboration between colleges and school districts. Excerpts from the report are as follows with criteria in italics:
Of the report's four other criteria — admissions, graduation and degree standards, finances, and assessments — two also suggest the benefits of greater collaboration between colleges and districts. One of the exemplary programs, Alverno College in Milwaukee, compensates for the academic deficiencies of its candidates, many of whom are graduates of Milwaukee schools, through individualized education by both college and district faculty.
Of those four criteria, finances also could be the key to a more collaborative relationship. Each of the exemplary programs "has enthusiastic backing from the public schools they work with" as well as from the college or university administration and faculty in arts and sciences as well as in education.
A favor for all
As noted in part one, college of education faculty, particularly those closely involved with field placements, often complain that school district officials regard providing field experiences as a favor they do for colleges. Whether district officials would regard that as a fair characterization is less important than whether changes can be made to lessen the distance between the producers and the consumers of new teachers.
Though teacher retention, or lack thereof, is subject to many influences beyond adequate preparation and mentoring — responsibilities of colleges and districts, respectively — is there a possibility that closer collaboration between the two, as recommended by Educating School Teachers, could be based on financial incentives?
Currently, teacher candidates pay tuition while student teaching. With very few exceptions, they are not compensated by the districts in which they gain teaching experience. Colleges of education, on the other hand, offer districts varying kinds of compensation for schools and teachers welcoming their students — usually in the form of tuition vouchers.
Little research has been done on these arrangements, and alternative methods of compensation are rarely discussed, but questions abound. Are teacher candidates unpaid assistants in classrooms or are they students in training? Should universities, which have tended to regard teacher education, Levine's report admits, as a "cash cow," take in the student teacher's tuition money when school districts are providing the training? Might there be a more collaborative arrangement that would benefit all concerned and result in newly certified teachers better prepared for the work? Might the practice of other professions suggest alternate models for the provision of the essential experience? If school districts are increasingly hiring uncertified personnel as classroom aides and assistants — and they have long paid for substitutes — might teacher candidates fill some of these positions?
As Educating School Teachers points out, much of what passes for research in education is irrelevant for practitioners and not very useful for policy-makers. But pressures to implement the report's recommendations could result in both better research and better collaboration were deans and district officials to reconsider their relationship.
And if this could result in better teacher preparation and higher quality teaching, it would be doing a favor not only for colleges, but for districts — and potentially for individual students most in need of what schools can offer.