Advancing the Teaching Profession

We Need to Dispel the Myths about Effective Teachers

If you want to reflect for a moment on education half-truths and the imprecise diagnosis of teaching quality problems, take a look at two articles published in the October 18th edition of the Los Angeles Times — one on value-added teacher evaluations and the other on challenging education myths.

Both pieces raise important issues related to the role of teacher education as well as student test scores in developing and identifying effective teachers. But in addressing those issues, the journalist-authors actually embellish current myths rather than dispel them — and may send us down the wrong policy road.

Myth: Teacher tenure rules make it impossible to get rid of poor teachers.

Fact: A recent study by the New Teacher Project clearly shows that the difficulty in removing ineffective teachers has much more to do with poorly trained administrators who have few skills and inadequate tools to distinguish between excellent, average, and poor teaching. Another report, from the Center for American Progress also concluded that poor evaluation procedures, not tenure, are most likely to account for a school district’s inability to fire poor performers.

Myth: Teach for America, a rapid-entry alternative certification program designed to recruit bright young people into teaching, produces more effective teachers than traditional university-based programs.

Fact: Nationally, the Teach for America program produced about 4000 new teachers this school year, a very small contribution given that U.S. public schools need to hire about 250,000 new teachers annually. Studies show that TFA recruits tend to produce student achievement gains only slightly better than comparison teachers — and only in math, not in reading. Most importantly, the comparison groups in these studies tend to be teachers in the same or similar schools who have even less formal pedagogical preparation than TFA recruits. Why? Because the high needs schools in which TFA’ers teach often have to rely on substitutes and other poorly qualified individuals. Studies also show that more than 80 percent of Teach for America recruits, much like other recruits who enter with little formal training, leave the classroom by their third year of teaching, becoming part of the revolving door of novices who pass quickly through high-needs classrooms. This does not mean that tradtional teacher education has it right. It doesn’t. But less is not more in preparing teachers for high needs schools.

Myth: Standardized tests now in place are always the most accurate means of assessing student progress and teacher effectiveness. Scores from these tests should be the primary metric for evaluating teachers and increasing accountability.

Fact: Today’s “value-added” systems for measuring teacher effects can provide useful information, but the data are not always reliable for making high-stakes decisions. Assessments based solely on scores from tests currently in use are not designed to help teachers become more effective. Also, recent studies show that most value-added student academic gains are attributed to teacher teams, not individuals. Drawing on very sophisticated analyses, these studies reveal that the most powerful predictor of student achievement over time seems to be whether small groups of teachers are learning from each other as they teach. This suggests that policymakers should not just focus on replacing the “bottom 6-10%” of ineffective teachers, but devise strategies so that “teachers raise their games when the quality of their colleagues improves.”

Policymakers and practitioners do need to think much differently about assessing teachers and transforming teacher education. But that new thinking will not be productive if we cling to the educational equivalent of urban legends about what makes for effective teachers and successful students.

Reaping the Whirlwind

John Merrow’s recent PBS NewsHour broadcast on staffing our nation’s most challenging schools with Teach for America (TFA) recruits is a must see. Listening to Mr. Merrow’s interview with Paul Vallas, you would think the superintendent of the New Orleans Recovery School District has only one of two choices: fill classrooms with young, energetic, “top talent” from competitive colleges — or with old, tired, academically and pedagogically inept teachers from wherever.

The facts revealed in Merrow’s report show how important it is for teachers to get the “right” training and support in order to teach effectively in high needs schools -- much less in an urban community like New Orleans, with a long history of school problems capped by the most devastating natural disaster in modern American history.

The issue is not the intense, five-week lockstep pedagogical training regime of TFA. Nor is it the typical, disconnected university-based teacher education program, where teaching-methods courses have little to do with preparation for high needs schools. The answer is something else, and a big piece of it can be seen in emerging urban teacher residency initiatives in Chicago and elsewhere — and the cutting-edge preparation programs at top-flight education schools like those at Stanford and UCLA.

In these pacesetter programs, education researchers work with expert K-12 teachers who develop and support new recruits over time. With high-quality residency and internship programs, we can help new teachers build the resiliency they must have to survive and prosper in schools that need them most. The smart, idealistic people who enter these programs are able to work side by side — for many weeks and months — with seasoned veterans who are able to share their successful strategies and their deep knowledge of high-needs school culture.

Pop sociologist Malcolm Gladwell, in his best-selling book, Outliers, has made a compelling case that training and effort are more important than talent. Gladwell points out that the most effective individuals (including teachers, we can assume) put in at least 10,000 hours of practice on the road to proficiency and success. Compare that to the average amount of practice we give to new teachers — traditional or alternative — before we hurl them into one of the most challenging jobs in our society.

During her interview with Merrow, TFA recruit Jeylan Erman lamented that “I thought I'd come into teaching being naturally good at it, because I care so much about students. I automatically thought that, because I care so much, I [would necessarily] be really great. It's not like that.”

The New Orleans recruits needed more pedagogical tools and more seasoned veterans to help them teach effectively. They also needed to work in a redefined teaching profession, where youth is not pitted against experience, and teachers and administrators work closely with health and social service agencies (like the Harlem’s Children Zone) to connect schools and communities in serving students and their families.

Although many teachers who viewed the NewsHour report were understandably upset by any suggestion that multiple years of professional service is somehow a negative, the Merrow piece actually makes a compelling case that all new teachers, no matter their academic pedigree, need serious training and support in order to teach in high needs schools.

Watch it carefully and probe beyond the surface debate about 5-week TFA training versus the 12-week student teaching experience offered  by most education schools. Let’s quit wasting all this youthful talent, energy and idealism and get serious about what it truly takes to recruit, prepare and retain teachers for the kids we all say we care about. Until we do, we’ll continue to reap the whirlwind.

Growing NBCTs in High Needs Schools

While shortages of qualified and effective teachers persist in high-needs schools, there is no shortage of rhetoric about the proper remedy.

It’s a rare week when a think tank or research center does not produce a report on what ails the teaching profession. For example just recently, the Center for American Progress released two reports — one on attracting and retaining effective teachers for high needs schools and the other on pay for performance programs as a primary tool to do so. Both reports from the influential think tank are informative, but like many others before them, they do not address a number of critical issues. One very important missing piece: quality teacher preparation and good working conditions are critical in supplying effective, stick-with-it teachers to high needs schools. Another missing element in the discussion: The important role of growing expertise from within.

Our own research at the Center for Teaching Quality has taught us how powerful the certification process can be as a strategy in developing successful teachers in high-needs schools. We have also learned from National Board Certified Teachers, who describe the huge payoffs that come when teams of teachers sitting for the National Boards use their intensified focus on high standards to consider many teacher effectiveness issues that policy pundits overlook or do not fully understand.

One of the best examples can be found in a crime-riddled, impoverished neighborhood in Phoenix, Arizona, where 20 of Mitchell Elementary School’s 34 teachers are either National Board Certified or in the process of earning the performance-based credential. Mitchell serves a community where less than 25 percent of the adults have a high school education. Over 50 percent of the students are second language learners; 96 percent are on free/reduced lunch, and 96 percent are Latino. The school was once in NCLB corrective action. Now Mitchell meets all its AYP goals each year.

The district did not recruit expert teachers to high needs school; they grew them from within. In addition, most of their home-grown NBCTs have roots in the community. Most are minorities, like the students they teach.

Most importantly, Mitchell teachers claim the process has transformed their teaching and given them newfound opportunities to take more control over their professional development. With support from the Arizona K-12 Center and its director, Kathy Wiebke, teachers are using the National Board process to better understand their teaching and how it directly impacts student achievement — as a collective. In particular, together these teachers are learning more about how to teach students with special needs and work more closely with parents.

As the district’s associate superintendent, Suzanne Zentner, noted, “We believe in the NBC process" as an “alternative approach to improving student performance” and closing the achievement gaps.  Teacher turnover is no problem at Mitchell Elementary School in inner-city Phoenix.

We all agree that we must pursue fresh approaches to recruiting and retaining effective teachers for high needs schools. The strategy of growing NBCTs from within is showing promising results where it has been tried. It's the best of all worlds -- combining rigorous professional standards, teacher collaboration, and bottom-up leadership. We need to give this promising strategy every chance to succeed.

How Teacher Education (and Master’s Degrees) Make a Difference for Student Achievement

 I must say I am little weary of policy pundits who say that schools of education and master’s degree programs make no difference in the lives of teachers and the students they serve. Certainly there are some that do not. As Linda Darling-Hammond said in a recent interview, “probably a quarter of the teacher-education enterprise” is of very high quality. Other programs are “pretty good,” she said, “but they could be a lot better if there were incentives and supports to get them there. And there are some that need to be put out of business.”

One of the high quality programs is at the University of Florida — where a group of teacher educators, non-profit leaders, and children’s advocates have created a Ready Schools Strategy that connects teacher preparation and professional development with health and social services in Florida’s high-needs school communities.

Last week I was fortunate to work with Don Pemberton of the UF Lastinger Center for Learning, Dave Lawrence and Ana Sejeck of the Early Childhood Initiative Foundation, and Dorene Ross of the College of Education as well as several terrific teachers. During my visit I learned a great deal about their Teacher Leadership and School Improvement Initiative in Miami-Dade and its powerful impact on Redondo Elementary, located in Homestead, Florida. Redondo serves a beautiful multi-ethnic group of Pre-K through third grade students (of which almost 50 percent are English Language Learners and over 90 percent receive free or reduced price meals).

Let’s start with what matters for the kids: In 2005 less than 50% of the Redondo’s students were proficient in reading or math. Since the launch of the Ready Schools Strategy, including a specialized master’s program for a core group of teachers, the student achievement has escalated. In 2008, over 67% of the school’s third graders were proficient in reading; over 92% in math. Rene Baly, the school’s principal, credits hard-working teachers who have learned to teach differently. He also credits working conditions, which give teachers more time to learn from each other and to work closely with health care, social work, and community outreach professionals who help connect the work of teaching to the lives of students and their families.

The school’s health practitioners see 60 students a week – treating a variety of illnesses and eye and ear problems – to ensure students are ready to learn as well as feel safe and loved. Family engagement efforts bring the school to the neighborhood, but also offer tailored training in English and parenting skills to the mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles of Redondo’s children. On a weekly basis at least 25 of the school’s parents attend sessions.

Teacher preparation and support are critical components as well. Don Pemberton’s vision and entrepreneurial skills have brought a fully-paid, job-embedded advanced degree program to the school’s teachers. The UF education school has orchestrated a set of research-focused learning experiences that cultivate new teacher skills related to differentiated instruction, data driven decision-making, culturally responsive teaching, classroom management, and leadership — while giving individual teachers opportunities to specialize in literacy or second language learners. What's most striking is that the education school program is highly adaptive. It's equally helpful to a recently minted novice who had little training in how to teach in a high needs school; an alternative certification recruit who knows her content but has few pedagogical skills that enable her to teach it to diverse learners; or a veteran teacher who needs to develop new research-based skills in literacy and assessment.

During my visit I met several outstanding teachers. They were not graduates of elite colleges or individuals enticed with bonuses and performance pay to teach in high needs schools. Instead, most were from the community and represent a new vision for “growing your own” effective teachers for challenging schools. In return for being able to earn a “no-cost” master’s degree, the teachers agree to teach at Redondo for at least 5 years.

Zolia Esteve, an 11-year veteran, says that as a result of the program she is now much more effective at teaching reading. She described a second grader “Julia” who was reading less than 20 words a minute now being able to not just read but comprehend 120 words a minute. She also has the “confidence to challenge” the administration on how to better deliver services to students. Principal Rene Baly is grateful for Esteve's newly developed leadership skills and the new ideas she brings to table.

I also met Melissa LaRosa, a finalist for Reading Coach of the Year in Florida, who spends countless hours team teaching and providing support and advice to her colleagues, who view her as a “teacher’s teacher.” For Melissa, who proudly wore her Edugator t-shirt during our visit, the University of Florida master’s degree program and its focused inquiry approach made her a better coach, providing her much needed skills in using data and understanding why students were learning or not.

Finally, I was proud to meet Cathleen Caves, another teacher in the program, who actually went to Redondo when she was in elementary school. She began her career as a teaching assistant and is now one of the school’s experts in the use of a variety of formative assessments to drive instruction. Cathleen told me that the UF graduate program "is fantastic.” Pointing to Zolia and Melissa, who were in room with us, she added: “We are more like a family than ever before.” Perhaps most importantly, she asserted, “With my salary I sure could not pay for this degree myself — and now I want to teach here for my whole career.”

The Teacher Leadership and School Improvement Initiative has just graduated its first class. Next year the University of Florida expects to serve 400 graduate students (pending funding). Don Pemberton, at the helm of Lastinger Center's Ready Schools master teacher strategy, envisions preparing and supporting – and networking – 10,000 Florida educators who are all dedicated to teaching effectively in high needs schools.

Smart teacher preparation and support may just be the solution we've been searching for to end the current maldistribution of effective teachers. If so, the University of Florida is blazing a trail that other education schools and master’s degree programs can follow if they really want to make a difference.

Debating the Certification Debate

In a Nov. 14th post, the luminous Eduwonkette raises the issue of why there is so much attention paid to teacher certification in the United States.  Drawing on the teacher quality research of Richard Ingersoll – who calls for “upgrading training and certification standards” — the erudite Ms. 'Kette raises questions about the often intense (dare I say vitriolic) calls by Washington DC pundits and media-types to do away with teacher certification standards.

The certification critics often cite Tom Kane’s research that shows little difference in the student achievement scores of the new teachers who enter through traditional (more extended, university-based) and alternative (short-cut training) certification regimes. There are methodological holes in the Kane study – but that is not the point to be taken here. The issue  is not “certification or not” – or “teacher education or Teach for America.”  The issue is what teachers need to know before they begin to teach and how our education system ensures they do know – so kids do not get harmed.

So here is my initial short list for a new kind of teacher certification system. It must be one that ensures  novices know how to: (1) find the right kind of standards-based teaching resources for the diverse students they teach; (2) work well with second language and special needs learners; (3) use and analyze student achievement data for improving teaching, (4) create effective classroom management systems for 21st century learning, and (5) work well with parents and families and draw on community resources to serve their students. 

Our solicitous Eduwonkette makes the point that other professions do not have their certification systems so scrutinized — and in some cases even vilified. What if we halted the vitriolic debate and considered what we want our teachers to know and do– and then supported them in their efforts to serve our nation’s students and their families?

And why don’t we transcend the debate over who should be recruited to teaching and how much preparation they should have--by discarding the idea that one teacher is solely responsible for 25 students? Instead, we can create policies that promote our best teachers to serve as supervisors and coaches of a wide range of novices, adjuncts, and teaching assistants who collectively work with large groups of students. What could dynamic support do for the retention and quality of all new teachers?

NCATE or TEAC

Controversy continues to brew on how to best judge universities who prepare teachers. The latest example comes from Maryland where “teacher colleges may get an option on accreditation.” Until a few years ago, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) was the only agency sanctioned to accredit universities that prepare teachers. In 2003, the U.S. Department of Education recognized the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) established as a competitor. To be sure, both share the goal of improving teacher preparation – but there is a major difference.

Universities must meet NCATE standards – which are externally developed by consumers (administrators, teachers) and regulators (policymakers). However, under the auspices of TEAC universities can make up their own standards. This cannot be a good thing – especially given the demand from the federal government that every teacher be ‘"highly qualified. " Why should a university have a choice when it comes to meeting standards? Can you imagine hospitals getting to choose whether or not they have to meet standards? Or getting to choose the standards they are expected to meet?

As noted in the recent new article (cited above), Edward Root, Maryland state board of education president, complained about NCATE's "burdensome" overemphasis on content: "It requires too many courses in math, physics or chemistry that the teachers do not teach in high schools." Is that not what the USDOE has pushed with its "highly qualified" teacher provisions?

This issue is worth exploring. Hmmm.

Teacher Education & Certification Effects Redux

Once again a group of researchers have laid claim that teacher education and certification have little positive effect on student achievement. In a study published by the Hoover Institute, Tom Kane, Doug Staiger, and Jonah Rockoff found that while traditionally prepared and certified teachers produce higher student achievement scores at first, alternatively certified and uncertified teachers catch up by end of year three. In a slanted news story, published yesterday by the New York Sun (November 21, 2006), researchers claimed that policymakers should worry less about teacher education and certification and more about firing ineffective teachers in their first few years of teaching. However, what was not noted was the following:

1. By the end of Year 3 alternative certification teachers, if they remain in teaching, actually have been trained in “how to teach” and have earned a master’s degree from schools of education;

2. Most of the alternatively certified teachers had left by Year 3, after proving less effective with their students for the two years they taught; and

3. The much higher attrition of alternative certification teachers leaves most students with a revolving door of new and untrained novices, and in doing so, reifies gross inequities in the our public school system.

In a previous study, drawing on the same database, researchers concluded that there was more variation within the traditional and alternative pathways into teaching than between them. This means there are effective multiple ways to prepare teachers. However, these studies do not at all suggest that teachers do not need extensive preparation before they begin teaching. And these studies do not reveal the horrific working conditions teachers often face — especially in New York City — rendering fruitless whatever preparation they received. The Hoover-funded researchers called for “getting rid of teachers who perform badly during probationary periods.” Yet, their data actually suggest that policymakers should find out what kinds of teacher preparation and induction supports novices need and make deeper investments in them.

TMAO and Teacher Education

Once again, TMAO (Teaching My Ass Off), 27-year old accomplished teacher from California has done it again. Another one of his must read blogs on teacher education was posted a few weeks (and unfortunately I just got around to reading it). In response to Arthur Levine’s knuckle-cracking report, TMAO, while recognizing the need for teachers to be prepared, points out for the most part, “teacher training sucks.”

I love his spirit and his mind when he writes: “Th(ere) is a difference between being able to recite Maslov's hierarchy of needs, and knowing what to do with 33 kids who aren't filling up level one of their need-pyramids. The difference between being well-versed in the value of a progressive classroom management system, and understanding the importance of being the show in the classroom, bringing out your inner silverback guerilla, the necessity of owning student behavior as a fundamental professional obligation.”

TMAO has some good ideas about a new kind of preparation program – a multi-year version that co-mingles the development of content, pedagogical, and clinical training. His ideas, in some ways, flesh out additional detail regarding the kind of preparation John Norton and I posited in our recent Edutopia article, “Learn from the Masters.” Go read his blog entry and consider the BIG question: “Who will pay for such an teacher training enterprise?” There are those who do not demand this kind of TMAO-type teacher education because of the cost. If you expect teachers to know more and be trained more before they take over a classroom of their own, then they must be paid more.....hmmmm.

Educating School Teachers: A Critique

Just recently (September 18, 2006) the former President of Teacher’s College, Arthur Levine, released a report, Educating School Teachers. As Education Week noted in a September 20th article, Levine’s findings paint teacher education “as a troubled (field) in which a majority of aspiring teachers are educated in low-quality programs that do not sufficiently prepare them for the classroom.”

Levine’s well-written, hard-hitting thesis is timely given that “the nation is deeply divided about how to prepare large numbers of high-quality teachers.” Drawing on a range of data I have suggested previously that “this rancorous debate (often) becomes a contest between those who want to protect the current teacher education monopoly owned by university faculties, and those who want to jettison the traditional teacher preparation provided by slow-moving colleges of education and out-of-touch professors.” Levine agrees, noting that “there is a schism over the how’s and when’s of teacher education between those who believe teaching is a profession like law or medicine, requiring a substantial amount of education before an individual can become a practitioner, and those who think teaching is a craft like journalism, which is learned principally on the job.”

For the most part, Levine’s findings are on point. Built on four years of case studies, surveys, and the extant research literature, he claims that teacher educators “lack agreement” about what they should produce, and programs at the 1200 colleges and universities often consisting of a “confusing patchwork.”

He briefly offers equally harsh words for the proliferating alternative certification programs that place new recruits into high need schools and classrooms without the necessary preparation. The federal government’s push for Teach for America-like on-the-job training ignores both “quality ceilings and floors.”

Granted, Levine’s recommendations — like measuring teacher education by focusing on student achievement, turning teacher preparation into a clinically based, rigorous 5-year enterprise, and closing failing programs — are noteworthy. But they are nothing new. All one has to do is read the 20-year old reports of the Holmes Group or even James Conant’s 40-year old book, The Education of American Teachers.

However, the report’s controversy rests on two conclusions — education schools must recruit more academically-abled students and the current system of professional accreditation is so flawed that it needs to be discarded. Both conclusions warrant some discussion.

First, education schools have grave difficulties, at no fault of their own, in attracting the highest-scoring students. They instead often attend competitive universities that can cost as much as $180,000 and open doors into any number of high paying professions and fields. As any economist would claim, with a starting salary of less than $30,000, teachers cannot afford the high price of an elite education. Levine, in an earlier essay published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, poignantly paints the real picture on what keeps academically-abled students from becoming teachers: “Education schools do not determine the salaries, the status, or the working conditions of teachers. Only states, localities, and school systems can change the pool of people entering the education profession.”

Second, Levine’s report claims that elite universities do not seek professional accreditation from the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, and as such, the field should not require it. However, unlike in other professions, teachers do not have to graduate from a professionally accredited school in order to practice their trade. Levine’s report ignores the stark fact that education schools volunteer to have their programs examined externally, and now can choose among two different varieties (adding more confusion to the field). Also, Levine sidesteps the fact that of top five education schools he cited as exemplary, three are NCATE accredited. Professional accreditation in teacher education is clearly not a perfect quality control mechanism, but the process has enforced standards. Last Spring 23 percent of the colleges who tried to meet NCATE standards failed to do so. Research cited by Levine shows that graduates of NCATE institutions are more likely to stay in teaching longer, and thus generate higher student achievement gains over time.

Like Levine I am smitten with Deborah Ball’s (education school dean at the University of Michigan) “lucid and compelling explanation of (the) teacher education curriculum” — one that includes an “enriched” major with a specialty in teaching content to diverse learners. I would add a complementary residency designed and adapted to the diverse recruits (traditional and alternative) needed to effectively staff our nation’s schools. NCATE, if made mandatory, could play a major role in the quality control. The federal government and states could play an even more important role by ensuring that those teacher education recruits who pass muster are paid substantially more. Then we might find our way to guarantee a caring, qualified, well-supported, and effective teacher for every student.

Getting the Story Right on Teacher Education

Jay Mathews, usually a sharp education reporter, missed a beat or two in his August 6th Washington Post article, Learning from the Masters. He tries to make the point that “some of the best” teachers do not learn their lessons in education schools and university professors ignore what award winning-teachers, like Jason Kamras, have to offer. Mr. Kamras, the 2005 National Teacher of the Year with a masters degree in education from Harvard University, uses a number of successful “tricks of the trade” – seemingly not taught in education school courses. After only a few telephone calls to unnamed professors, Mr. Mathews leaps to the spurious conclusion that education schools do not help future teachers learn from experts (like using Mr. Kamras’ strategy of “marking of just a few homework questions helped raise test scores by enabling him to cover more lessons without getting bogged down in grading papers.”). Mr. Mathews complains that education schools teach research-proven methods at the expense of teaching the “practical” but “unorthodox” teaching methods of award-winning teachers.

Mr. Mathews should have also featured in his article Betsy Rogers — 2003 National Teacher of the Year. Betsy, a National Board Certified Teacher from Alabama, returned to teach in 2004 to one of her state’s lowest performing schools, Brighton Elementary. Betsy is an extraordinary teacher (and now curriculum coach) whose teaching experiences and methods have been chronicled in Education Week and in her blog on the Teacher Leaders Network.

Betsy is also a clinical professor at Samford University where she helps prepare new teachers – who have been recruited to work with her at Brighton. A few weeks ago Betsy told me how she and her Samford professorial colleagues are using scientifically-based approaches to reading with their teacher education students — and this has been the key to soaring student test scores of the Samford graduates who are now teaching with her at Brighton. And now last eve,
Betsy informed me that Brighton, just two years after her arrival, made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as prescribed by No Child Left Behind.

Samford University, like all high-quality education schools, draw on K-12 teaching experts to prepare the next generation of future teachers. Education schools are needed more than ever to help future and practicing teachers learn how to teach in increasingly challenging schools. The best ones draw on proven theories of how to teach literacy and math as well as how to design lessons for second language learners and to reach out to parents and family members. The best education schools also draw on lessons from the masters like Mr. Kamras and Ms. Rogers. Mr. Mathews should be a bit more diligent and precise in gathering data for his stories.

More on the NCTQ Reading Study Debacle

Over the last week or so I have written several times on the “research” report, What Education Schools Aren't Teaching About Reading--and What Elementary Teachers Aren't Learning, released by the National Council on Teacher Quality. While I believe that education schools have much to do to improve the preparation of teachers who can teach reading and literacy effectively, the NCTQ. Report, with its biased methods, was not much more than a typical tirade against teacher education.

Recently I heard from Dean Jean Box of Samford University, an education school which received an “F” from the NCTQ reviewers. Jean sent me a formal response that her colleagues developed in response to NCTQ’s sloppy study. As you may remember the NCTQ study methods relied almost solely on what could be found by downloading a professor’s course syllabus from the web and quickly noting if the right words and texts were used to describe the “science” of teaching reading. In critiquing the study generally Dr. Box noted that:

• Course syllabi outline the main points of a course of study, but do not provide certainty as to whether or not the components outlined are taught properly or satisfactorily.

• Some lectures and lecture details are presented in handouts separate from the syllabus, which may not be found online….and consequently, an online course syllabus is not an adequate source for comparison among universities and cannot be used to measure student learning or instructional behavior.

• Failure to alert schools that they were to be named in the study was a breach of research ethics.

In responding to NCTQ’s rating Samford University as a failure, Dr. Box and colleagues noted that:

• Researchers looking for syllabi with reading in the title would not find any on Samford’s website (since our) program is designed around comprehensive interdisciplinary courses with unfamiliar titles.

• Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the courses, no lectures at all and only a very few of the course activities are listed on the syllabi.

• Samford’s program places students in classrooms to work with master teachers 60-180 hours every semester (not including student teaching). This strong clinical emphasis was not taken into consideration by the study.

Dr. Box continues:

“The authors of the study criticized the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) for accrediting programs “that do not teach reading.” We suggest that through NCATE’s in depth approach to program assessment they were better able to determine what each program was actually teaching and how graduates were performing in the profession. This cannot be determined by a cursory look at syllabi pulled from the web.”

It is about time that our nation’s effective teacher education programs, and there are many of them, stand up and respond when policy pundits make unwarranted claims in order to advance their ideological agenda. I am certain this story is not over.

Flawed NCTQ Research and the Flaying of Teacher Education

Recently the National Center on Teacher Quality, in its typical flaying of teacher education, released a report claiming that 85 percent of our nation’s colleges and universities are failing by “not educating prospective teachers in the basic knowledge and skills necessary to teach reading effectively” In my June 7, 2006 posting I revealed how NCTQ clearly was seeking to lambaste teacher educators for not teaching future teachers how to incorporate phonics, phonemic awareness, and fluency in their reading programs. The NCTQ research methods, relying solely on a crude assessment of a selective sampling of reading course syllabi and textbooks, were more flawed than the teacher education programs reviewed.

In my commentary I specifically mentioned NCTQ for giving Samford University a “F” in preparing teachers to teach reading, and offered compelling testimony from Betsy Rogers, 2003 National Teacher of the Year, who works closely with the university and its teacher education graduates at Brighton Elementary School (where Betsy and these young Samford teacher education graduates) are no doubt helping many students learn to both decode words and comprehend them. Now I have heard from both administrators and faculty from Samford — with more evidence of the biases of NCTQ research methods.

Jeanie A. Box, dean of OBB School of Education and Professional Studies, and Carol Dean, chair of Teacher Education wrote in an email to me:

“Samford education graduates are well-trained in Alabama Reading Initiative modules and receive extensive training in the five components specifically mentioned in the research study - phonemic awareness, phonics, guided oral fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. The authors of the study did not understand how to read our teacher education syllabi. Course titles specifically targeted by the researchers such as Early Reading, Reading Across the Content Area, etc., do not appear in our program. Rather, the curriculum for teacher preparation is integrated and reading is embedded in several comprehensive syllabi."

They continue:

"In addition, all syllabi refer to the Alabama Reading Initiative, which is a research-based balanced approach to reading well known throughout the country. Because those who work with the ARI understand its philosophy, the (right) words do not appear in our syllabi but (a balanced approach to teaching reading) is clearly communicated to our students. Individual course lectures (one of the criteria used by researchers to rate syllabi) are not listed in our course syllabi but are given to students as a separate document at the beginning of each semester. A critical part of Samford’s teacher preparation program is the extensive clinical experiences afforded our students. Each student spends 60 – 120 hours every semester in the classroom working with master teachers. These kind of experiences were not included as part of the study.”

A faculty member later wrote to NCTQ president Ms. Kate Walsh explaining in considerable detail how her “data collection methods (were) abhorrent at best” and in no way were able to capture how Samford teacher education students indeed were learning how to teach reading, using all five major components of effective instructi0n identified by the National Reading Panel. My June 7th commentary surfaced the compelling hard evidence, using test score data, of how Samford teacher education graduates are helping young Brighton elementary school students learn to read. NCTQ did not seek the hard evidence in their study only the kind that could easily tell the story they wanted told.

As I have written before there are education schools that need to be doing a much better job in teaching reading. However, I wonder how many other education schools NCTQ has unfairly flayed. I wonder how NCTQ can explain away its biases and repair the real damage its almost witch-hunt like research methods have inflicted on universities, faculty, and teacher education graduates. And again I wonder why NCTQ chose not to review short-cut alternative route programs into teaching in their prejudiced approach to “What Teacher Preparation Programs Aren't Teaching About Reading--and What Elementary Teachers Aren't Learning.”

Teaching Teachers to Teach Reading: A Critical Review

Recently the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) released a self-proclaimed “groundbreaking” study, What Teacher Preparation Programs Aren't Teaching About Reading--and What Elementary Teachers Aren't Learning. The report claimed that “85 percent of colleges and universities are not educating prospective teachers in the basic knowledge and skills necessary to teach reading effectively.” In its scathing critique of teacher education, NCTQ sought to assess the degree to which teacher education students had courses that exposed them to the individual components of the “good reading instruction.” The NCTQ cites the National Reading Panel liberally, with its call for teachers to focus on five literacy components, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, in a balanced way. But the NCTQ report is all about whether or not education schools hone in on phonemic awareness and phonics. Those programs whose syllabi emphasize the right components get the good grades. Others fail.

Don’t get me wrong: I am certain many education schools are not doing what is necessary to ensure that future teachers know how to effectively teach reading. Of the nation’s 1200 education schools some still offer only one 3-hour semester course in general reading methods, while others require as many as 18 semester hours in reading coursework that covers topics ranging from the structure of
English to working with second language learners to teaching reading comprehension. Some require no clinical training in schools, under the supervision of expert reading teachers, while others offer as many as 50 to 60 hours every semester. I do not question one iota that education schools can and must do better.

However, while the NCTQ report does raise good questions, its anti-teacher education bent and sloppy methods get in the way of being very helpful to policy makers, practitioners, and the public. The NCTQ study, sans any peer review required of a scientific investigation, has laid claim to their findings solely by analyzing a sample of textbooks and available syllabi (found on college websites) from 72 of the nation’s 1200 schools of education. Their sample selection of 5 percent may very well be reasonable and valid. However, some of their methods bordered on bizarre, and seemingly are designed to find the evidence NCTQ sought. For example, NCTQ reviewed course syllabi and textbooks – a reasonable indicator of what is taught in a college class. However, the research team refused to conduct surveys because, as they claimed, “these would only reflect a teacher education students’ perceptions of a (reading) course not what was in it in actuality.” This is indeed bizarre. To me teacher education student responses to what they were taught and what they learned in their reading courses would seem to be a better measure of reality than what was listed in a syllabi found on a website.

However, the inclusion of Samford University on the NCTQ failing education school list caused some pause. Samford, an award-winning private university in Birmingham, Alabama, has not only a terrific reputation among administrators and school board members in the state but has won numerous national awards for excellence in teacher education. More importantly, Samford University graduates are indeed trained and trained well to teach reading. And who better to make the claim than Betsy Rogers, 2003 National Teacher of the Year, a National Board Certified Teacher, and now a School Improvement Specialist at what was once one of Alabama’s lowest performing elementary schools. Betsy writes in an email to me:

"Samford’s graduates, who are working with me at Brighton are excellent. First of all they are extremely professional and have high expectations for themselves and the students. They are well versed in the (nationally acclaimed) Alabama Reading Initiative and they know how to use the Alabama Reading Assessment, DIBELS. Plus they have also been taught to work well with high need students and as a result even as first year teachers our students did not overwhelm them. They have an excellent understanding of the foundation of teaching reading. They have adapted easily to our programs and know how to use them to help students with individual learning differences, to read. In addition, these new teachers taught in our summer reading program last year and received six weeks of extra training and coaching. They have been great. With their help over the last several years our test scores in reading have risen dramatically."

Later Betsy sent me in another email the soaring student test scores of these Samford graduates. For example, in 2005-06 kindergarten phoneme segmentation fluency reached 100% percent while first grade oral reading fluency reached 79 percent and phoneme segmentation fluency reached 100% percent. Samford graduates did learn how to teach scientifically-based approaches to reading, even though the syllabi and available texts did not convince the NCTQ.

Several years ago the National Commission on Excellence in Elementary Teacher Preparation for Reading Instruction released a real study that actually looked at meaningful data — and documenting the specific qualities of effective teacher preparation programs that produce gains in reading achievement. (BTW, the NCTQ report totally ignored this major reading study.), Using a quasi-experimental research design, the Commission surveyed 950 teacher education programs, selected 28 for in-depth study, and then followed 101 recent program graduates into their first three years of teaching, tracking both their attitudes and effectiveness.

Effective teachers of reading, that those they increase student achievement on standardized reading tests, “draw from a repertoire of strategies to help struggling readers,” not just the phonics only approach emphasized by the NCTQ. The Commission found that effective reading programs focused specifically on early literacy, including oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, and word identification and fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension as well as assessing all aspects of literacy learning, and organizing and managing literacy instruction across grade levels. Perhaps, most importantly, the effective programs “engage their pre-service teachers in a variety of course-related field experiences where they have opportunities to interact with excellent models and mentors.”

The well-written NCTQ report raises some important issues (especially around assignments undergraduates are expected to complete). But without a more credible approach to assembling evidence I am concerned that their study will end up only as yet one more of their customary diatribes about teacher education and the teaching profession.

A final question: How NCTQ would have rated Teach for America and other alternative certification programs, offering only 5 weeks of training for all of teacher education, on reading preparation? Searching the TFA website there is no course syllabi available, much less one that could be evaluated to determine if this short-cut, alternative route into teaching — much favored by NCTQ — prepared its “graduates” to be effective teachers of reading. Hmm. Someone explain that one to me.

Kids Drop-out Because Teachers Don’t Know How to Teach and Reach Them

Here is yet another study strongly suggesting that teachers need to know more that their content – they also need to understand how to teach.

Civic Enterprises (an inside the beltway research firm led by two former Bush administration officials) and commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, found that more than 60% of high school drop-outs reported earning C’s or above.  Approximately 66% of survey respondents also claimed that if teachers and administrators pushed them harder they would have worked harder. Almost half of them reported their classes were not interesting – i.e., their teachers just did not know to teach and reach them.

The study, The Silent Epidemic offers a haunting tale of high school where students are disengaged by the curriculum schools offer and how teachers teach. High school reformers would do well to listen to students – the ultimate beneficiaries of the reform policies they create. Granted, much of the Gates Foundation’s $1 billion effort to redesign high schools focuses on rigor and relevance as well as relationships. But not enough is being done to prepare teachers in how to teach and provide them with more training and time to understand and know their students well.

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration, while recanting the Gates mantra in calling for more rigor, relevance, and relationships in today’s high schools, continues to promote alternative certification and other short-cut recruitment strategies that can almost guarantee that teachers do not know how to teach and reach their students.  A recent evaluation of the Gates’ high school grantees revealed that teachers needed a great deal more support in finding and using curriculum materials that could engage their students as well as the “implementation of innovative (teaching) practices within the context of current standards and accountability requirements.”

Most any college graduate can speak of the horrors of sitting through obtuse, disconnected, uninspiring lectures from a Ph.D. who knew their subject matter “cold.” Good high school teachers must know how to make content accessible to all students. So what is it going to take for policymakers to get it when it comes to teaching quality?  Maybe we need to turn up the volume on what kids are saying about their high schools and how they are taught.

Teacher Education Making a Difference? (or did I read the same report as those at NCTQ?)

The anti-teacher education crowd must be rubbing its proverbial head.

A recent study by researchers Donald Boyd, Pamela Grossman, Hamilton Lankford, Susanna Loeb, and James Wyckoff have surfaced some intriguing and thought-provoking conclusions, drawn from their major study of the effects of different pathways into teaching in New York City on the teacher workforce and on student achievement.  Using a large, sophisticated database and employing thoughtful and fair-minded analyses, these researchers offer up important findings regarding the importance of teacher education in improving teaching quality. The bottom line, much to the chagrin of the teacher education misanthropists, is that there is nothing from the Boyd study that suggests university-based teacher preparation needs to disappear from the face of the earth.

Indeed, the February 7th newsletter of the National Council for Teacher Quality (NCTQ) — a consistent supporter of the demise of all things that smack of university-based teacher preparation — quietly and somewhat humbly admitted that short-cut alternative certification programs like the New York Teaching Fellows and Teach for America may not be the best idea since “sliced bread.” However, the authors of the NCTQ in this recent edition of their electronic rag, had to “cherry pick” a research finding to claim that the Teaching Fellows, after three years, “leave their traditional counterparts in the dust.”

I am not sure if the NCTQ crowd read the same Boyd, et.al. paper I read. (In any case, you should read the full paper, available for free (not $5 as advertised by NCTQ).

So let me set the record straight by first setting the context, something that the anti-teacher education crowd rarely does.

First of all, NYC employs 80,000 teachers, and because poor salaries and even poorer working conditions, the district has experienced horrific teacher shortages. In response, no surprise, the district has resorted to hiring increasingly less-prepared teachers to fill growing numbers of empty classrooms. In the spring of 2002, NYC employed 12,400 teachers with temporary licenses, and, as such, has relied on hiring teachers who enter through a variety of different pathways. Along with traditionally prepared or College Recommended (CR) teachers — primarily recruited from the local City University of New York (CUNY) system — NYC also brings in teachers from a variety of alternative, or short-cut routes into teaching, including highly recognized programs like Teach for America (TFA) and the NY Teaching Fellows program (Fellows). 

In 2004, the Fellows brought almost 2500 new teachers to New York City, while TFA provided less than 350.  Importantly, unlike most CR recruits, the Fellows and TFA recruits receive substantial support (e.g., stipends and tuition discounts) in taking the required teacher education courses they need to be certified.  As the researchers noted:

Participants enrolled in alternate route programs must fulfill the same requirements as all other candidates for teaching certificates, and thus by the end of their programs, they have completed a similar set of courses to those taken by graduates of college recommended programs…. However, the costs of entering teaching through an alternative route are substantially less for the individual teacher than the costs of traditional university-based teacher preparation.

This fact, ignored by those at NCTQ, has a great deal of bearing on why the students of Fellows (in middle, but not elementary school) eventually catch up to their peers taught by the more traditionally-prepared CR teachers. So let’s go through the major findings of the study as described by Don Boyd and his colleagues.

First, teachers from both the Fellows and TFA have clearly upped the ante on the academic qualifications of new recruits to NYC. In the 2003-2004 academic year, 16 percent of the CR recruits did not pass the general knowledge certification exam on their initial attempt, compared to none of the TFAers and less than two percent of the Fellows. This is good news. But as the researchers note both the Fellows and TFA pathways are “less costly for the student to complete,” prompting them to speculate that the academic quality of CR recruits would most likely increase if they too had the financial support provided to their alternative route counterparts. I guess the anti-teacher education crowd is quietly saying, “ouch.”

Second, the students of CR recruits do fare better in both elementary and middle school reading and language arts than their counterparts taught by temporary licensed teachers as well as the Fellows and TFAers. In fact, even temporary licensed teachers do better than Fellows. This makes sense. Although CR recruits graduate from a variety of “traditional” university-based teacher education programs (some very effective while others very ineffective), they are taught to some extent how to teach reading!  This one probably hurts the anti-teacher education crowd even more. 

Third, in elementary math, students of CR recruits initially outperform students of other teachers. The anti-teacher education crowd does not highlight this finding. The Fellows start out performing worse, but gain more over the first year than do other teachers. By the second year, their students perform as well as CR students. Students of TFA recruits make gains during their first year but they are “never statistically different from a CR teacher.”  This one forces a smile out of the anti-teacher education crowd.  But stay with me.

Fourth, in middle school math both Fellows and TFAers do a slightly better job than both CR and temporary teachers.  No surprise. Both the Fellows and TFAers have a lot more math in their backgrounds.  And this is a good reason to recruit them. I am all for alternative routes into teaching. Our schools do need more teachers who have a stronger background in math – but the anti-teacher education crowd just cannot own up to the fact that they need to also know how to teach as well. The Fellows, in particular, get better by Year 3 of study because by then they have received a bunch of teacher education. If the anti-teacher education crowd owned up to this fact, then they would need to go the doctor for some pain medication.

Fifth, when it comes to measuring the effects of different pathways into teaching, turnover matters; and it matters a lot. TFA recruits, compared to both CR and the Fellows, are far more likely to leave teaching after two years. By the third year of the study only 25 TFAers were still teaching! Over time the relative attrition of the Fellows grows so that it is roughly comparable to CR teachers, and actually exceeds them after three and fours years. The researchers assert boldly, “If one pathway consistently has higher turnover even if its teachers do well relative to those in other pathways with the same experience, the pathway may not be providing the most effective teachers, on average.” 

Some Fellows and TFAers as well as CR teachers can become effective teachers. But, if they do not stay around more than a few years then they cannot help very many students learn. The solutions to the problem — i.e.,  better salaries and working conditions  as well as better pre-service and more extensive induction programs — will cost money as well as a lot of bureaucratically and politically painful reallocation of money. The anti-teacher education crowd does not mention this fact.  More money for more teacher education is not the only response to the problem, but it is part of it. Just ask any number of education school deans who are trying to put into place more clinically-based teacher preparation programs, while their state funding keeps getting reduced.

Finally, let’s be real — and dead serious here. There is a lot of variation within pathways.  For example, about 25 percent of the so-called more traditionally prepared, college recommended recruits did their student teaching as teacher of record. What this means is that it is difficult to tease out the differential effects of traditional versus alternative preparation when traditional recruits take on the qualities associated with alternative ones and vice versa. It also means that, as the researchers note, “the variation in effectiveness within pathways is far greater than the average differences between pathways.” There is effective and ineffective traditional preparation; and there is effective and ineffective alternative preparation.

So what are the implications of this important study — which has a number of additional components that will shed even more light soon on these matters. The evidence here suggests that teacher preparation and certification does matter in improving teaching quality and student achievement, but what counts for teacher education and current licensing requirements at this time is not enough for the students who must be served. Although for the most part the CR teachers are more effective than the Fellows and TFAers, the differences are not large. I am not a fan of what still goes on inside of most “traditional” university-based teacher education programs.

However, there is no evidence at all in this report that current alternative route programs, as NCTQ suggests, are “the best place” to recruit secondary school teachers. The surveys and interviews that Boyd and company are conducting and analyzing will help policymakers and practitioners get smarter about what needs to be done to ratchet up the quality of teacher preparation, both traditional and alternative alike, and to dramatically improve the support systems (e.g., induction, professional development) and working conditions necessary for teachers to be effective. So let’s get beyond the traditional versus alternative debate and do what is right the students – who are the ultimate beneficiaries of teacher education.

The Emergency Teacher

Traditional Teacher Education and Alternative Certification: The Case of the Emergency Teacher

There still seems to be much controversy over the whether or not teachers should be prepared more extensively in university-based teacher education programs (with time to learn content, how to teach the content to diverse students, and significant opportunities to “practice” teach) or in short-cut alternative certification programs (with only having content knowledge) before one becomes the independent teacher of record. I find folks on both sides of the issue to be sensitive and somewhat intolerable of hard questions and any critique no matter how presented.

In a recent Education Week commentary I tried to lay out issues to suggest that the traditional prep versus alternative certification should not be an “either-or” but “and-both” strategy. To read the commentary in its entirety, please visit Education Week (requires registration): http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/10/19/08berry.h25.html

The issue, as far as I am concerned, is about what is best for the students who must be well-served and well-taught by teachers who know more than content and who will stay more than 1-2 years in the classroom.

Recently, Harry and Rosemary Wong tell the story of journalist Christina Asquith, who became an "emergency teacher" in inner-city Philadelphia and lived to write about it -- in a just-published book titled "The Emergency Teacher." http://teachers.net/wong/NOV05/

The Wongs, who befriended Asquith and co-wrote articles with her, include the first chapter of her book in this recent column at the Teachers.Net website. Asquith's experience raises serious questions about the notion that alternative rapid-entry teacher recruitment programs are a meaningful solution to teaching quality issues in our nation's hard-to-staff schools. Asquith is an amazing woman — a former journalist who served as a correspondent in Iraq and then proceeded to “fight for women’s rights in the Middle East.” But she also quickly learned that despite her content knowledge and extraordinary experiences, she was not ready to teach middle school English in the Philadelphia schools. She writes:

"On many days I truly loved teaching, but my lack of experience made the bad days too terrible for everyone involved. Overwhelmingly, I felt guilty, confused, and hopeless about the experience. Yet, in the back of my mind, I wondered if I hadn’t been thrown in cold, if I had had some training, any training—some support, could my brief career in teaching have turned out differently?"

Check out this amazing story — and consider the kind of preparation and support all teachers need.