Challenge to Teacher Ed

We should all hope this venture may break the stronghold of university training.

The sad fact is until there are fundamental shifts in beliefs systems nothing changes. The religion of reading is a powerful force and I see this has the biggest hurdle. Even Dr. Lyon told me years ago it would take 12 years to train enough teachers in replicated research models.

In all my experience as a special education consultant I have yet to find one school having any teacher capable of addressing the needs of the bottom 15% of the kids with reading disability. The other question needing to be answered is why they are going to find professors to teach the necessary skills since there currently are none available? It will be an interesting venture to say the least.

Jimmy KilpatrickEditor, EducationNews.org

Jimmy Kilpatrick, Editor at EducationNews.org, at 8:56 am EDT on June 14, 2005

Challenge to Teacher Education

Although teachers definitely need a dose of evidence-based understanding of how to teach, they also need much more, for beginning teaching is very challenging. I did an analysis of two cohorts of young teachers a few years ago and identified 500+ challenges they face their first year. More than courses about evidence-based instruction are required to get young people through that experience. Whether the type of alternative certification described in the article can do so deserves a test, but a test that includes complete evaluation of the outcomes. Does it produce young people who are better prepared to teach? That question must be answered by research. Given the track record of alternative certification, I’ll assume the null hypothesis until there is reason to assume otherwise.

Michael Pressley, University Distinguished Professor-Designate at Michigan State University, at 9:06 am EDT on June 14, 2005

Competition?

Yea for the fact that there is competition. The only time competition hurts is if it’s for a very small pie that won’t support the overhead of two competing suppliers. The ed pie is large enough for two.

The way you break into a new market is to make a lot of noise about the bad points of the existing product and the good points of the new one. You make sure you have a supply of the new one so those who buy can spread the word.

In a REGULATED market you have to register your product with the regulator. This is the case with educator providers. Will this new model produce teachers with certificates (not a “given” because they may find it difficult to get that capability from agencies in some fiefdoms).

Good luck to both sides. If the market is allowed to work, the first effect will be low-cost good stuff as the new organization buys market share. The second effect will be quality improvement of both products with no increase in price, concomitant with court battles to strangle the competition or at least raise their overhead. If both sides succeed in producing equal quality, the third effect is divestment of the old system’s excess capacity or product — a selldown. Finally, steady state where good stuff at low price is available from either, and both sides race to improve the price/performance ratio. ... unless the lawyers succeed in perverting the process.

Good luck to the market. So far there is only one teacher provision company, the state. If you don’t want state teaching you have to do it at home and that isn’t sufficient competition for current programs. You can expect some royal battles over the new approach in years ahead.

Good luck to the market.

Rich Godfrey

Rich Godfrey, at 11:44 am EDT on June 14, 2005

best research

“...wonder, in their dismissal of teacher education programs, if the “best research” that this “radical departure” is going to use has come from education researchers — the denizens of teacher training departments — at all? Or have they found some new, untapped vein of scholarship in Political Science or Chemistry which teacher trainers just hadn’t tumbled to yet?”

More than likely they will be using the currently ignored research done by psychologists, sociologists, and others who actually have training and expertise in conducting research on humans.

Research training in Education graduate programs is generally rather terrible, and thus the work that comes out of Education depts. is, as a whole, not very good.

The focus laid out by this alternative approach is long overdue. Hopefully they will succeed in actually following through on their stated goals.

jason, at 7:33 pm EDT on June 14, 2005

TE Should Compete

Kudos to Rich Godfrey!

He got it right by framing the debate against “markets.” After all aren’t markets the mainstay of our economy and therefore our model for successful day-to-day living? Aren’t markets the places where our students-turned-workers end up?

Why should Teacher Education, indeed all public education, be exempt from markets?

It’s pretty hard to operate outside market forces (at least in capitalistic, democratic countries) and, on a daily basis, from government leaders to economists, to CEO’s, to the 143 million people in our workforce, markets determine day-to-day life.

As Bart mentioned, the prevailing model of education operates like a “planned economy,” —where job security and the “same tomorrow” seem more critical than the principles and intent of education.

A planned form of governance, where a central body holds the key (information, knowledge, competence) to determinants of success and failure, is, to me, undemocratic and more aligned with 19th Century tenets. At a minimum, it stifles competition and innovation and focuses (inappropriately) more on maintaining the current system, i.e., circle the wagons, protect the jobs and long live the status quo... oh my!

Competition can only improve the entrenched, antiquated system of education as it encourages (well, it must first allow the venue for a voice) alternatives to present conditions. Of course, not all competition will result in presenting a better product or service, but competition alone —the permission for alternatives to operate and be judged against the current system—will most certainly bring viable ideas and processes to the table.

As such, instead of maintaining such a stranglehold on what Jonathan Dresner considers the merits of “education researchers,” let’s agree to move forward beyond that myopia (after all, isn’t it arguable that these denizens of teach training departments got us into this mess in the first place) and invite, as those in the markets might say, “more heads to the table” for a candid dialogue.

Michael, at 11:13 am EDT on June 15, 2005

Citation for AFT President quote

FYI:

Op-Ed Page, The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 2, 1989

Bart, at 7:50 pm EDT on June 24, 2005

I have been a fan of Reid lyon for years, and have been energized by his courage,insight and expertise. ( I hold an undergrad B.S. in elementary education, M.A. In Industrial Labor Relations, MEd in special education, reading, early childhood, early childhood supervision, and have 2 courses remaining for ed leadership/administration (principal’s cert.) To say I have been a life long student is an understatement.)

Though I agree with Reid that colleges are not adequately preparing teachers- I’m not sure that the problem lies only with the curricula of the universities. Rather, it has been my experience that college students are not all that different from younger public school students... that is, some excel while many others will do only as much as is required to earn the grade that they are satisfied with- they do no more and no less. (many never even buy or read the required texts.)

It has also been my experience that when presented with assessment driven data, and indivually designed education plans (for schools, classrooms or individual students) many school administrators and classroom teachers are not interested in the data and in fact are intimidated by it and can become rather hostile. However, if assessment data doesn’t drive instruction- how do we know where we are going and how far we’ve come?

As for public school curriculi, well, the idea that book sellers sell books is not new. and the understanding that most core curriculum reaches only 70 percent of the students is not new. Good teachers have know all that since book sellers began selling books. And good teachers- rather great teachers have found ways to develop their own sytematic intervention and intensive remediation...they just didn’t have a name for it... but great teachers are few and far between. I believe most teachers work incredibly hard and they want to do the right things unfortunately they just don’t know what to do. Furthermore, the school “system” marches to a rather slow drum beat making change a very slow process.

Being a lifelong consumer fo higher education, it has been my experience that there are some excellent universities out there- but many colleges are in themselves “closed societies” that limit “membership” by high tuition and biased selection committees. But there are some great state universities and some accessible private schools... it seems to me, the best ones ones are incorporating universal design principles in the college classroom and are encouraging incredible amounts of true student investigation and exploration of current research in education (Carlow University in Pittsburgh is one of the good ones.) But Reid is accurate in saying there are lousy colleges just like there are lousy teachers and non-motivated students.So if Reid’s idea is to build a better teacher college he has formulated a great recipe. He has found teachers who want to excell, professors who demand excellence and school districts who are OPEN MINDED about change and research/data driven practives. I imagine he will be successful in his quest to design a better teacher training system.

However, Reid’s idea is not something that can’t be replicated in every university in the country. The tough part is finding students who want TO PAY FOR rigorous training, finding affordable colleges who enroll the right students, finding professors who have actually TAUGHT real kids, and finding school districts who will PAY highly qualified, highly productive and highly educated teachers.

It is not surprising that the Chicago City Schools will be the pilot program for American College. They need help, they want help and they have been progressive for many years in the early childhood movement. I imagine Chicago schools will also implement the tuition forgiveness plan- the nursing profession has been doing it for years. So for Reid, it sounds like a win/win combination.

I wish Reid success, though I will miss having him as a member of the NICHD.

kelly patterson, at 5:18 pm EDT on August 29, 2005