Recently, Teacher Magazine published a nice story on the growing role of community colleges in preparing teachers (“Degrees of Preparation,” October 1, 2005) — and surely some will use the success story described therein to suggest that teacher education ought to be taken out of the university altogether. Indeed, at least 400 of our nation’s community colleges are now in the teacher education game, and according to one source, 20 percent of teachers nationwide began their preparation in community colleges. The article noted that in Miami and Nevada, because of teacher shortages, community colleges now can “offer a full-fledged bachelor’s in education.”
Don’t get me wrong. There are many ways that community colleges can play a vital role in recruiting and preparing new teachers – just as was described in Teacher Magazine whereby the teacher spotlighted ended up becoming fully prepared (by California State University Long Beach’s Integrated Teacher Education Program) and passed all state standards before she began teaching. However, other models have community colleges providing all of the content, pedagogical, and clinical training for would-be teachers. Who are the faculty of these community colleges? Will they meet national teacher education standards? Will teachers, prepared solely in community colleges, develop the deep content knowledge they need to teach? Will they learn the different methods needed to teach different subjects? Will they learn how to use a wide variety of research-based reading strategies (like those used in Reading Recovery)? Will they learn about how to teach second language learners and use a variety of student assessment techniques? Will they learn how to teach from not just expert practitioners but also university faculty who are engaged in cutting-edge research methods that help them teach more effectively? Will they learn about American public education and — with a cultural and historical context, their role in improving it? Will they learn the first (or second) steps in becoming teacher leaders? These are just a few of the questions that come to my mind in considering the role of community colleges in preparing. I am hopeful that community colleges will play a role in preparing a new generation of teachers (as described in Teacher Magazine). I am not so sanguine about the likely prospects that some “reformers” will use community colleges to lower the bar in the preparation of teachers in the pursuit of lowering costs and limiting the professionalization of teaching in America.
