This article, the first in a two-part series, focuses on the problems
and the challenges of teacher preparation.
Ask people about the state of teacher preparation in the United States
and many would respond that it borders the state of "Dismay." Others in
the know would point to one or more of the outstanding university programs
that are training competent, abundantly qualified teachers for today's
schools.
The truth about the current state of teacher preparation probably lies
somewhere in between.
The bottom line is that all institutions of teacher preparation
should be following the lead(ers). They should be following the lead of
model programs that are turning out teachers who know their subject and
have the skills to teach it. Instead, many schools of education are virtual
(not in the high-tech sense) diploma mills, cranking out teachers in much
the same way they did twenty years ago. And twenty years before that.
WHAT MATTERS MOST!
Teacher preparation has been the subject of a few recent and well-publicized
studies. A study by the National Commission on Teaching and America's
Future has drawn the most attention. The study, What
Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future, calls for "a
caring, competent, and qualified teacher for every child" by the year
2006. That, the report states, is the single most-important ingredient
of school reform. Students are entitled to that!
But many obstacles stand in the way of achieving that goal.
"American students," the report states, "are entitled to teachers who
know their subjects, understand their students and what they need, and
have developed the skills required to make learning come alive." But among
the barriers to that stand:
Low expectations for student achievement;
Standards for teachers that aren't enforced;
Major flaws in teacher preparation;
Inadequate induction for teachers just starting out in the classroom;
A lack of rewards for those who demonstrate superlative knowledge
or skills.
To address those concerns, the Commission offers five major recommendations
(which are detailed in the report). Those recommendations are:
Get serious about standards, for both students and teachers;
Reinvent teacher preparation and professional development;
Fix teacher recruitment and put qualified teachers in every classroom;
Encourage and reward teacher knowledge and skill;
Create schools that are organized for student and teacher success.
"This is not an insiders' report," Linda Darling-Hammond, the Commission's
executive director and an authority on teacher preparation at Teachers
College, Columbia University, told Education Week (see Teaching
Focus Called the Key to Reform Push, 9/18/96). "It doesn't pat everyone
on the back and say 'We're all doing fine and what we need is more money
and respect.' It says we have to get serious about the tough stuff."
The challenge to teacher education institutions comes at an opportune
time, the report says. Enrollment growth and retirements in U.S. schools
will create the need for more than 2 million new teachers in the next
ten years.
STATISTICS SUPPORT THE NEED FOR TEACHER PREPARATION
REFORM
Take a look at a handful of the Statistics
on Teaching in America that were included in the report, and the need
for teacher reform becomes painfully clear:
More than 12 percent of all newly hired teachers enter the workforce
without any training at all. Another 15 percent enter without having
fully met state standards.
More than 50,000 people who lack the training for their job enter
the teaching profession each year on emergency or substandard licenses.
Fewer than 75 percent of all teachers have studied child development,
learning, and teaching methods; have degrees in their subject area;
and have passed state licensing requirements.
More than half (56 percent) of high school students taking physical
science courses, and 27 percent of those taking mathematics courses,
are taught by teachers who don't have backgrounds in those fields. (The
proportions are even higher in high-poverty schools and in lower track
classes.)
The proportion of school staff classified as classroom teachers has
fallen from 70 percent in 1950 to 52 percent in 1993 -- while the number
of non-teaching staff increased by more than 40 percent.
A recent eight-nation study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development revealed that the U.S. has by far the lowest ratio of
core teaching staff to non-teaching staff.
School districts spend only one to three percent of their resources
on teacher development, as compared to much higher expenditures in most
corporations and in other countries' schools.
Teachers earn substantially less than other professionals, including
accountants, sales representatives, and engineers.
WHERE'S THE MONEY TO COME FROM?
In its report, the Commission offered three suggestions for investment
in improved teaching. Those recommendations are:
Reallocate $40 billion from non-teaching functions to classroom teaching.
That's just half of the $80 billion currently spent on non-teaching
costs.
Reallocate $10 billion to provide compensation systems that reward
teacher knowledge and skill. That money would come from the $19 billion
spent annually on teacher salary increases granted for education credits.
Spend $4.8 billion on improved recruitment, teacher education, and
professional development. That amount includes scholarships for able
recruits in high-need fields and areas; teacher education, including
internships in professional development schools; mentoring supports
and new licensing supports for all beginning teachers; and new funds
for professional development.
WHERE DOES THE CHANGE BEGIN?
Schools of education must give a firm commitment to strengthening teacher
education, John Goodland, co-director of the Center for Educational Renewal
at the University of Washington, told participants at a symposium to address
issues of teacher preparation held last fall at the Teachers College,
Columbia University. (See Symposium
Puts Focus on Improving Teaching, Education Week, 11/6/96,
for a complete report.)
"We need to approach it from two ends," said Wendy Koop, the director
of Teach for America, at the forum sponsored by the Rockefeller Brothers
Fund and Teachers College. "We need to improve schools of education, and
we also need to improve ways school districts recruit, support, and develop
teachers."
Teachers who participated in the conference see the need too. Melissa
Martinez, a teacher at W. Haywood Burns School in Manhattan, said she
would have benefited from a stronger apprenticeship program. As it was,
she was forced to learn by "trial-and-error."
To have the opportunity to learn the "art" of teaching slowly, over
a longer period of time, was the sentiment expressed by a number of teachers
present at the forum.
WHAT DO TEACHERS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT CHANGING
TEACHER EDUCATION?
The Council for Basic Education surveyed about 600 teachers across the
grades and the consensus was that schools of education should commit to
preparing teachers for the "practice" of teaching. Most agree that "theory"
rather than practice dominates teacher ed and that that approach is ineffective.
The focus of teacher education should be practice and school-based experiences.
Future teachers must be in schools early -- and often.
From the responses of teachers, three major changes needed in the preparation
of teachers are clear. Teacher preparation programs must:
Require all teachers to know the content of the subject they teach.
"It's ludicrous to expect an elementary teacher to teach science or
math on one course in each of those disciplines," wrote one teacher
in response to the survey.
Teaching students how to teach academic content should be a
focus of teacher preparation. "I didn't have any nuts-and-bolts knowledge
to carry into battle," wrote one teacher recalling her first months
in the classroom. Another wrote "As a supervising teacher for numerous
student teachers, I am alarmed by what I see as a lack of preparation
for classroom experience. Most students are unable to prepare adequate
lesson plans, unit plans, and are weak in the areas of discipline and
classroom management."
Offer prospective teachers many and varied school-based experiences.
Student teaching for a few weeks in the senior year of college was the
extent of many of the survey respondents' experience before they started
teaching full-time. "Would-be teachers need to get into the classroom
earlier -- not to observe but to assist, perhaps as instructional aides,"
wrote one teacher.
Some survey respondents are impressed with some of the changes they
see in teacher education today. Some teacher preparation programs are
sending students out into the field much earlier than in previous years.
Teachers should be eager and involved learners themselves, says an advisory
panel on teacher preparation in California. The group felt that the
most crucial ingredient in a future teacher would be that teacher's excitement
about knowledge. They recalled Albert Shanker's "call for professionalism"
in an address to the National Press Club in October, 1985: "…even at the
earliest grades, the motivation of a teacher to teach a child to read
could not be very great if the teacher has not personally experienced
the joy of reading great books. Motivation in teaching the elements of
arithmetic could not be very great if at some point the teacher has not
experienced the power of that knowledge."
This series will continue. Watch for Part 2 in the weeks ahead, when
we'll focus on some exemplary teacher preparation programs.
Teacher
Preparation The Oklahoma Commission for Teacher Preparation was
established to develop a new results-oriented teacher preparation system
in Oklahoma.
