Beyond the Hype: Asking Better Questions About Teacher Preparation

Be sure to check out Dan Brown’s latest Huffington Post essay on the considerable publicity of Teach for America and the misunderstanding of the human capital challenges facing our nation’s highest-need schools. Dan, an excellent young teacher in a DC charter school, offers up key facts typically ignored by policy pundits and journalists in their ongoing analysis of the teaching profession and all its ills. Even bright college graduates need the right kind of training and support to be effective — and need to stay in teaching for longer than two years to make a meaningful difference.

Dan, a former NY Teaching Fellow and author of The Great Expectations School, describes in his must-read book how his lack of preparation left him unable to meet the needs of the students he served. Researchers like Richard Ingersoll, who does not have a dog in this ideological fight, have documented carefully that poorly prepared teachers (from whatever source) who exit the profession quickly leave their students to be taught by the next round of ill-trained novices who routinely replace them. A recent investigation has shown that “schools with high teacher turnover rates have difficulty planning and implementing a coherent curriculum and sustaining positive working relationships among teachers.”¹ Other studies have found that entrants from strong teacher education programs both stay in teaching significantly longer and achieve stronger student achievement gains that those of either alternative route entrants or weak traditional programs.²

TFA has developed a masterful teacher recruitment strategy and created a potentially powerful mechanism to replenish the teaching profession with bright young minds eager to make a difference. But what if TFA worked to support a cadre of its Corps members to develop their teaching talents in a “residency” program (which I have written about at length), with incentives and supports to remain in teaching for five years? What if TFAers worked under the tutelage of seasoned experts — ensuring that all students have access to a stable team of teachers, organized and supported to maximize their collective skills and energy? What if we got out of the either-or rhetoric that so dominates the teaching quality debates of late and moved to some and/both thinking and action? We need to be thinking about what will make teaching a career that TFAers want to stay in. Keep an eye out for more from Teacher Leaders Network on this front — as Dan (a new member) and other Gen Y and X teachers join us in finding fresh solutions to the vexing problem of ensuring a qualified and effective teacher for every child. If we are willing to ask the questions differently, we might find some innovative answers that actually work.

1 Guin, K. (2004, August 16). Chronic teacher turnover in urban elementary schools. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 12(42). Retrieved April 23 from http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v12n42/.

2 Boyd, D., Grossman, P., Lankford, H., Loeb, S., & Wyckoff, J. (September 2008). Teacher preparation and student achievement. NBER Working Paper No. W14314. National Bureau of Economic Research. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1264576.

Comments

[Bob Heiny]

You offer another thoughtful post. I share your interest in adjusting teacher prep in order to increase K12 student learning rates.

I'm curious, Barnett. I've followed this site for several years and cannot satisfy my curiosity.

I understand your effort to increase the presence of certain teachers in the political mix about schooling.

Why do you think this is necessary? Most people know that almost everyone can learn whatever they want whenever they choose with almost ubiquitous electronic technologies. Who needs a teacher to mediate learning for 12+ years?

Why do you think enough people (include whomever you think appropriate) do not already agree with the point about the need to adjust teacher prep? I don't think of anyone in or out of the academy who disagrees with changing it.

The unresolved question remains, "What changes on which schedules, made by whom and to whose advantage?"

Yes?

The issue of variations of learning through schooling has had political legs at least for a century.

Advocates in and out of the academy, politics, industry, religions, and government have raised similar points, studies, ideological manifestos, cohorts of participants, interest groups, schooling conditions, etc.

I'd urge considering, "What change in quality or quantity of what appeal and to whom do you see sufficient to resolve this issue?"

Will these changes occur by appealing to guilt, self interest, historical reference, classism, revolution, intelligencia, ... ?

And, how do you think such change will occur?

Yes?

[Brooke Anderson]

"We need to be thinking about what will make teaching a career that TFAers want to stay in." Exactly.

New teachers often think they know what they're getting into and later realize that teaching wasn't what they expected- or wanted. What can we do to minimize that disparity? If we can accurately and sufficiently prepare our new teachers, I hope that will lead to clearer expectations for the teaching profession in general. Now's the time to do it.

And to Bob:

"Who needs a teacher to mediate learning for 12+ years?" Almost everyone.

[Barnett Berry]

Brooke is right re teachers and the need to mediate learning. The cognitive scientists are making it more clear that teachers will be even more necessary in the future. However, their roles will change. They will need to be more facilitators, mediators, and brokers of instruction. We will need a unique mix of generalists and specialists.

As to the resistance to truly reform teacher preparation...Well, I suspect that some may not want teachers to be truly well prepared because they challenge the current programs and prescriptions mandated from the top of the administrative and political food chain. Others may not want all teachers to be well prepared - because if they were - the price of teachers would go up significantly.

[Bob Heiny]

Interesting comment, Barnett, about "some" not wanting teachers to be truly well prepared. Thanks for clarifying your position. I hope I misunderstand it: it's someone elses fault?

I have not met anyone, anywhere, besides a relatively few educators and education union members, who hold the position you describe, including in the academy, policy circles, industry, philanthropy, etc.

They hold the opposite position and have demonstrated their commitment by providing more resources to U.S. educators and our preparers than the total gross national product of most countries in world.

They wonder why educators don't initiate more that results in students learning more with these resources.

Yes?

[Matthew Brown]

Yes, Teach for America members may stay for a short period of time and lack ideal training, but their classroom contributions are only half the picture.

At this point, TFA has been around long enough to accomplish its secondary goal: generating genuine interest in education in elite circles.

TFA is certainly no cure all, but I think it deserves credit for the renewed energy around issues of school reform, school choice, and accountability. If the price for this renewed interest is a handful of extra teachers whose contributions are, at worst, negligible, it seems a fair price to pay.

[Barnett Berry]

Good point Matt. My concern is that TFAers' education comes at the expense of their students continuing to be beset by a revolving door of inexperienced, lesser prepared teachers. (I am not referring to the not-so-good teacher education programs.)

Imagine if about 10 percent of the teaching force (drawn from the most accomplished and effective teachers) teach but also supervise associate or adjunct teachers (content experts who may teach for relatively short periods of time) and novices (who enter with different levels of preparation and with different career intentions). This practical approach helps assure that all students have access to a stable team of teachers, organized and supported to maximize their collective skills and energy. Watch for an Education Week commentary on this idea and others.