"Teacher Preparation: Who Needs It?"
Without question, teacher quality is one of THE hot topics in education reform these days. Logically, we recognize that teachers are the ones primarily responsible for boosting student achievement in the classroom. Programs like the US Department of Education's Teacher Incentive Fund have thus been designed to reward those teachers whose students demonstrate success. It is a simple equation, outcomes result in rewards.
But what about the inputs that result in that achievement? What do teachers need to know, be able to do, and experience before they ever become a teacher of record? Those are the sorts of questions that the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) is trying to tackle with a new series of policy briefings it launched today, titled "Teacher Preparation: Who Needs It?"
In today's episode, AACTE offered up The Clinical Preparation of Teachers: A Policy Brief, a document that provides some of the history, the research, and the vision for how to best address clinical preparation. Chief among the recommendations — all prospective teachers, regardless of their pathway, need at least 450 hours of clinical training (or a full semester).
Full disclosure, Eduflack has worked with the folks over at AACTE for years. Regardless, today's briefing offered some interesting recommendations for the federal government, state government, and those preparing the next generation of teachers, including:
With a greater and greater focus on effective, results-based instruction, the issue of teacher preparation isn't going to go away. Even as part of its Quality Counts study, Education Week recently highlighted those states that are leaders and laggards when it comes to the clinical experience. Content may be king these days, but pedagogy is quickly gaining stature.
But what about the inputs that result in that achievement? What do teachers need to know, be able to do, and experience before they ever become a teacher of record? Those are the sorts of questions that the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) is trying to tackle with a new series of policy briefings it launched today, titled "Teacher Preparation: Who Needs It?"
In today's episode, AACTE offered up The Clinical Preparation of Teachers: A Policy Brief, a document that provides some of the history, the research, and the vision for how to best address clinical preparation. Chief among the recommendations — all prospective teachers, regardless of their pathway, need at least 450 hours of clinical training (or a full semester).
Full disclosure, Eduflack has worked with the folks over at AACTE for years. Regardless, today's briefing offered some interesting recommendations for the federal government, state government, and those preparing the next generation of teachers, including:
For the feds:
- Revise the “Highly Qualified Teacher” definition within the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to require that teachers must establish not only their content expertise, but their ability to teach it effectively, as measured by their actual performance in classrooms, following extended clinical experience;
- Invest in the development of a National Teacher Performance Assessment that would parallel the development and adoption of Common Core Standards;
- Maintain the Teacher Quality Partnership Grants, with a specific clinical preparation focus, in the Higher Education Opportunity Act while increasing funding for the program;
- Require a minimum of 450 hours, or one semester, of clinical experience during pre-service teacher preparation;
- Ensure that all teacher preparation routes, regardless of pathway, include the same clinical preparation requirements;
- Require a high-quality teacher performance assessment of all teacher candidates;
- Collaborate to agree upon common clinical experience requirements;
- Offer incentives to schools that act as clinical settings for teacher candidates;
- Support the expansion or replication of successful teacher residency programs;
- Ensure school districts and universities work jointly to design and supervise strong clinical practice collaborations;
- Provide all teacher candidates substantial and appropriate clinical preparation prior to becoming “teacher of record” in their own classrooms;
- Train clinical teachers and other teacher mentors to help and support novice teachers;
- Require all clinical teachers to have at least three years of teaching experience; and
- Assist our nation’s public schools and teacher preparation programs to jointly adopt standards for newly redesigned clinically based teacher preparation programs.
With a greater and greater focus on effective, results-based instruction, the issue of teacher preparation isn't going to go away. Even as part of its Quality Counts study, Education Week recently highlighted those states that are leaders and laggards when it comes to the clinical experience. Content may be king these days, but pedagogy is quickly gaining stature.
I would suggest a very different approach to teacher preparation: rather than turn even more talented individuals away from teaching by making certification more lengthy and costly than it already is (and in many states, it is incredibly burdensome), we should minimize barriers to entry into the profession, empower local hiring administrators to choose the best-qualified applicant for each available position, and then hold administrators accountable for the student outcomes that result from their hiring decisions.
Exhaustive teacher certification and professional development requirements have created windfalls for education schools and online degree mills, but they have done little to ensure teacher quality as measured by student performance (rather than by an arbitrary legal definition such as NCLB's "highly qualified" requirement). The primary effect of these requirements has been not to strengthen the teacher corps, but to weaken it by discouraging many talented individuals and career changers who were not education majors to calculate that the costs and opportunity costs of taking one or two years out of one's career, paying tens of thousands of dollars to a college of education, and working for free while checking the boxes of the state's certification requirements is too high a price to pay to become a teacher - especially for individuals who are older and have families to feed and bills to pay.
Also, one more thing: there is no evidence linking teacher training in pedagogy to student outcomes. Instead, a teacher's general academic ability and depth of content-area knowledge are the best predictors of how well she will be able to teach. It's a shame that we drive away so many of our most academically-talented and driven young people from public school teaching by making it so costly to become a certified teacher.
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Interesting stuff. I quibble with one recommendation "Offer incentives to schools that act as clinical settings for teacher candidates." Schools (and districts) already get benefit from getting an early heads up on quality candidates who are already up to speed on district practices. And, there is the possibility of benefiting from working with the clinical professors.
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In my opinion teachers training is essential, as not everyone learn in same way and at same pace.
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When you're in the corner and have no money to move out from that, you would require to receive the credit loans. Because that will help you for sure. I get secured loan every single year and feel good just because of that.
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I find this very interesting. I think teacher training is a very important part for the teacher. I know im my grad studies we did not have much hands on with students or classes discussing students, so my first day on the job was me thinking back to when i was in school and hoping for the best.
There should be some sort of on going teacher prep classes that teacher can enrich themselves to become a better teacher! Even though we are teachers we still need more and more education to help the students be all the best the can be.
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In my opinion teachers training is essential, as not everyone learn in same way and at same pace.
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