Reforms and Challenges in Teacher Education Programs:
Perspective of Policy Makers, College Presidents, and Practitioners
A Forum — November 5, 1999
Research shows that the success of a student depends most of all on the quality of the teacher. With the advent of standards-based reform, the quality of teachers working in America’s classrooms has become a major concern of policymakers, college and university presidents, especially at the nation’s colleges of teacher education, and the public in general. Additional concerns include the need for 2.5 million new teachers over the next 10 years to replace retiring teachers, to meet projected enrollment increases in certain states, to reduce class size, and to replace the tens of thousands of teachers who leave their jobs each year in search of more attractive and rewarding career opportunities.
A recent study by the American Council on Education (ACE), “To Touch the Future: Transforming the Way Teachers are Taught,” reviews the state of teacher education today and provides an action agenda for college and university presidents to improve their teacher preparation programs, said Patricia Maloney, Assistant Director, Center for Policy Analysis, ACE. The report found that current mechanisms of academic quality control – at colleges and universities, in schools and school systems, and in state laws and regulations – are inadequate to ensure that only fully qualified teachers enter the profession. The report also found that students who decide to teach in the earlier grades have poorer academic records than do their peers; most teachers are inadequately prepared to apply technology to teaching; and teachers avoid high-poverty schools. The report charges college and university presidents to: (1) move the education of teachers to the center of their institutional agenda; (2) connect teacher education to the mission of the institution with the full support and coordination of the academic departments; (3) conduct third-party and internal evaluations of the quality of their teacher education programs; (4) ensure that graduates of their programs are supported, monitored, and mentored; and (5) ensure that future teachers are educated in the uses of technology.
Two area universities are revising their teacher education programs to meet these challenges. Mary Futrell, Dean, Graduate School of Education and Human Development, George Washington University (GWU), believes the critical need is to make the quality of teachers central to the school reform agenda. She stressed the importance of linking educational standards with what teachers need to know and to grow professionally. Ms. Futrell said that GWU offers a range of master’s degree programs, designed to attract individuals to the field of teaching, and to provide some flexibility in the length of program, especially for individuals who want to change careers and become teachers. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards core elements are integrated throughout all areas of study, and all programs include a focus on leadership, clinical and reflective practice, community involvement, and research. Ms. Futrell ended by saying that more resources are needed to improve teacher education, to provide adequate teacher salaries, and to attract more individuals with higher skill levels.
Gary Galluzzo, Dean of the Graduate School of Education at George Mason University, said that the challenge is to increase both the quality and quantity of teachers to meet the demands of the workplace, to find ways to support teachers, and to keep them in the classroom. One response for schools of education has been to raise the standards for entry and exit. A second involves giving candidates more time working with children in schools, to make sure they are disposed to teaching. Accepting fewer weak students and providing more “real world” experiences will improve the quality of the graduates who teach the next generation, but Galluzzo went on, “we also must ask ourselves how market-sensitive we are in helping talented people make the transition into teaching in a timely and efficient manner.” Galluzzo said the reasons we have a teacher shortage are clear: (1) no one is really in charge of teacher recruitment, (2) the kinds of preparation programs that attract the best and the brightest into teacher education have not been created, and (3) schools are not places that appeal to people who are searching for autonomy and psychic reward. He said the difficult work is to attract people that have not been consistently attracted to teaching before, to prepare them well and support them in a professional culture, and then to retain them “before they find that work in a school (of all places) smothers the intellect.”
This information is from an American Youth Policy Forum held on November 5, 1999 on Capitol Hill, reported by Betsy Brand.
The events of AYPF are made possible by the support of a consortium of philanthropic foundations: Charles S. Mott Foundation, Ford Foundation, General Electric Fund, Ford Motor Fund, Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund, and others.