Mike Petrilli’s complaint that ed reform is in danger of morphing into the compliance police brought an interesting rejoinder from Sandra Stotsky in the comments section of this blog last week. Stotsky, a leading authority on standards and teacher quality, suggests that reforming education means reforming our schools of education. Dr. Stotsky prescribes the following:
1. Eliminate education schools as they now exist. Place the preparation of 5/6-12 subject matter teachers under the control of the academic departments whose content they should master to the extent the department itself can justify (for the grade levels they will teach). Each academic department should have funds for hiring pedagogical faculty adjuncts (preferably good teachers of the subject) for the methods coursework they need and student teaching supervision. Grades 9-12 teachers today should be required to have a MA or MS in the subject they teach. State governments can require and make these changes.
2. Place the preparation of primary grade teachers in 3-year dedicated pedagogical institutes, with candidates drawn only from the top 25% of high school graduates.
3. Eliminate all federal funding and regulations for K-12. Federal agencies should focus on faculty research and training of graduate students.
4. Eliminate the single-salary schedule.
Stotsky has more than a point in her indictment of ed schools. I suspect you’d be hard pressed to find many teachers who strongly agree with the statement “my ed school thoroughly prepared me for my classroom experience.” And it’s curious that many who think the answer to fixing education is “just fire bad teachers” aren’t equally adamant about fixing the pipeline that produced those “bad” teachers.
That last statement is pretty unfair– those who want to “just fire bad teachers” quite frequently are the strongest supporters of groups like TNTP, TFA, teacher residencies, and other alternative certifications.
I’ve rarely seen the “fire bad teachers” line shot off without the follow up, “create more alternative pathways to lower the barriers to entering teaching”.
That being said, I think the “alternative pathways” idea is too focused on getting folks to choose teaching post-college rather than choose teaching while in college and the shift there is making education schools relevant and prestigious.
Comment by Jason — November 15, 2010 @ 10:13 am
Fair point, Jason, and I don’t mean to paint with too broad of a brush. But even the alt cert crowd (and as an alt cert teacher, I count myself in that camp) seem content to merely do business with the ed schools, or view ed school as a hoop their teachers must jump through. Let’s take TFA as an example. Given the huge number of teachers they recruit, they would be well-positioned to push for serious reform of ed schools and how their teachers are trained. Are they exercising that leverage? Perhaps they are and I’m not aware of it. But broadly defined, the issue is the degree to which ed schools turn out qualified, competent practitioners. Do they?
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — November 15, 2010 @ 10:21 am
I can’t say I was terribly impressed by the quality of the many of the academic departments at my alma mater. I don’t think they would necessarily do a better job at preparing future teachers than the ed school. What I would think would improve teacher training is to switch to more of an apprentice model.
I have looked into what it would take for me to get my state teacher’s credential. Of the 12 required courses, only 3 were subject-specific methods or student teaching. The remaining 3/4 were politically correct edu-babble such as “The Multicultural Foundations of a Diverse Classroom”. As a would-be future teacher, I don’t need to read Paolo Freire. I need guidance from veterans on things like:How do I design homework assignments & tests that aren’t just busywork but still are manageable for me from a workload perspective? What can I do to keep my classes focused on the planned lesson rather than going down “rabbit trails”? How do I reach the student who is bright but underperforming?
Comment by Crimson Wife — November 15, 2010 @ 11:23 am
I agree with Crimson Wife in switching to an apprentice model. MDs are prepared thru “see it, do it, teach it.” Med students observe, interns do, residents teach. Ed colleges should include lab schools and the pedagogical faculty should demonstrate their concepts, not just talk about them.
Comment by Homeschooling Granny — November 15, 2010 @ 11:51 am
It’s refreshing to see what senior “thinkers” at the University of Alabama, with rich and varied educational experience in the Ukraine and Romania has to say about appropriate teacher education. I’m sure while she was at HGSE and managed the emergent Tisch College initiative, bridging between Franklin Patterson’s founding of Lincoln Filene, and Rob Hollister’s expropriation to convert “civic engagement” into “Tufts enhancement,” she learned much about the value of pedagogy in instructional activities.
Arkansas is a great place to start eliminating Ed Schools, and Harvard’s not a bad place to prove her point.
Comment by Joe Beckmann — November 15, 2010 @ 12:37 pm
I found my education classes to be completely useless to my career as an actual teacher. This includes my graduate degree. However, I started in a different discipline (engineering) before becoming a teacher, and the content area classes in that have had connections to my teaching career. In fact, in many cases, the complete disconnect between classes and practice has almost caused me psychological pain at the insanity of participating in a system that actually finds those courses useful.
I would prefer education majors to declare a specific subject concentration (even elementary school), and have at least minor in that field, combined with classes in child psychology and cognitive development. After 3 years in this program, students would spend their 4th year in an apprenticeship type position before finally becoming a full teacher.
Comment by Paul — November 15, 2010 @ 1:08 pm
Reform of teacher preparation in our teacher colleges and schools of education is key to improving our public schools.
We’ve had standards reform and are heading toward fiscal reform but until we have pedagogical reform our schools are never going to improve.
Comment by Paul Hoss — November 15, 2010 @ 2:05 pm
Full-time tenured professors in schools of education are too removed from the realities of the classroom. Additionally, those who “supervise” student teachers are most often retired school administrators who have no real stake in turning a poor candidate away from education; plus, to do so, the college would be unhappy about the loss of tuition dollars. As a result, it seems that everyone gets pushed through, regardless of whether or not they are up to the demanding tasks ahead.
Comment by LynDee — November 15, 2010 @ 2:50 pm
About the Pedagogical Institutes…
1) I’m not clear how they would differ from Ed Schools…
2) Is there any chance of convincing a significant number of students in the top 25% of their high school class to commit to a teaching career at age 17 or 18. It seems to me that one of the appeals of TfA is that allows its recruits to keep their career options open.
It seems to me that given the realities of the current market, the best approach would be to for state credentialing to focus on identifying what incoming teachers need to know and what the best ways of acquiring and demonstrating that knowledge are, and to leave Ed Schools to adapt.
Comment by Rachel — November 15, 2010 @ 7:05 pm
The frequent comparisons between teacher preparation and medical schools is ridiculous; totally different student populations, totally different content level and totally different testing and licensure requirements. The most appropriate comparison would be to BSN nursing programs, in which students typically spend the first two years on academics (basic sciences, pharmacology, dietetics, psych, math, and other requirements) and the final two years on in-class clinical material with supervised clinical practice. The nursing licensure exam is also much more closely tied to knowledge necessary for professional practice than are the usual teacher exams. Furthermore, ALL of the clinical material and most of the sciences is new material to the students; unlike teacher prep, where all of the k-8 and much of the 9-12 material should be known by students when they enter college. The idea that such knowledge cannot be refined, extended and combined with specifics on how best to teach it is also ridiculous. The old Normal Schools and Catholic teaching orders prepared k-8 students in one year and did it very well. My husband and I had such teachers. I do agree that the current ed schools are so weak and so disconnected from reality that they should be closed. There is also the issue that they have a decades-long reputation of having the worst teachers in the university; leaving aside the fact that few of them have any real experience teaching k-12.
Comment by momof4 — November 15, 2010 @ 7:25 pm
I should have added that I don’t see why k-3 classroom teachers, perhaps k-5 as well, should not be able to be adequately prepared in two years, with an associate’s degree.
Specialty teachers would require more time (a BA), but that time should be spent wisely; I know of a school system in which NONE of the spec ed teachers know how to teach dyslexics how to compensate for their disability, despite the fact that such techniques have been known for almost a century. The spec ed teachers simply gave kids the answers; no learning involved. One family spent tens of thousands of dollars to take their kid to someone who knew what she was doing (and had left the public schools because of the frustrations) and within a few years, the kid was doing fine in school with no IEP and no help (and is now doing very well at an Ivy League college). I’ve also read many complaints on various ed websites that spec ed teachers really don’t know academic content, even at ES levels (phonics, math, grammar etc) – and I agree that they should.
Further, the ed world should take another page from nursing; no one gets paid for an advanced degree/certification/ed courses UNLESS THEY ARE IN A JOB WHICH REQUIRES IT (and in nursing, that frequently also requires certification- by exam- in the appropriate specialty; critical care, pediatrics, nurse midwife, nurse practioner etc). If someone has a master’s or advanced-practice certification, there is no financial benefit unless that person is in a position that requires that specific degree/certification. I know an ES (taught several grades at k-5 level) who was paid for decades as if she had a doctoral degree because she had 60 grad credits. That’s ridiculous; advanced degrees are not needed at that level AND 60 credits of ed school grad courses (which included both beanbag and advanced beanbag) are not the same as a doctorate (not even an EdD, which is pretty useless; I speak as one who has dealt with many of them).
There’s a reason why many really good private schools have little interest in ed school grads; they’d rather have people who know their subject. I know someone who has never taken an ed course who was being recruited by a highly selective private school to teach French; she had lived and attended “high school” in France and had majored in French in college.
Comment by momof4 — November 15, 2010 @ 8:18 pm
So Stotsky wants primary grade teachers to come from the top 25% of their high school class, and momof4 figures primary teaching only needs an Associate degree…
Even if they both agree that Ed Schools are abysmal, it doesn’t get us any closer to a coherent approach to recruiting and training teachers.
Comment by Rachel — November 16, 2010 @ 11:08 am
As a former middle and high school teacher, I agree with Crimson Wife that teacher education should be more of an apprenticeship program. Nothing I learned in my teaching credential classes helped me become an effective teacher. As Crimon Wife noted, many of the ed school classes are PC fluff, rather than useful courses that help us teach. In my experience, TEACHING itself (i.e., experience) helped me become a better teacher.
I’d support a program under which new teachers taught a limited schedule, such as teaching 4 out of 6 periods, to allow for more prep time to develop their new lessons, and for time to meet, as needed, with an advisor or other senior teacher in the department. Unlike traditional “student teaching” where the master teacher receives a stipend but the student teacher works for free, I think that these new teachers should be paid for their work. That is, if the new teacher teaches a 3/4 schedule, they should be paid as would any other teacher with a 3/4 schedule.
Comment by Attorney DC — November 16, 2010 @ 12:20 pm
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How many education school professors have ever taught in a classroom? From what I’ve heard, it isn’t too common. I have a degree in IT. Most of my professors either had or did work in IT. If you have never taught in a k-12 school, how can you have a good grasp of what teachers really need to know?
Also, in other countries, it is common to actually teach teachers the material that they will teach in the classroom. It is also common to have ed schools that are separate entities (not part of a university) with 3 year BA programs.
Comment by FMA — November 16, 2010 @ 3:46 pm
@FMA
Those education professors who did teach in k12 are absolutely no better than those who didn’t. I speak from experience. As someone whose intent it was to teach physics in hs, what good does it do me to be taught by someone who spent 30 years teaching 3rd grade.
Teacher education, as well as teacher supervision, needs to be conducted on a per-discipline, per-age-group basis. There are no such things as “teaching skills” in general, at least not any that are practically useful.
Imagine going to a Berlitz school to learn Spanish, yet your instructor is a native of Beijing and can’t speak a like of Spanish. Is there a lick of commonality between all languages? Sure, but not enough to help a Mandarin speaker teach you a single useful thing in Spanish.
That about describes my nearly three year stint in education school.
Comment by Bob — November 17, 2010 @ 8:23 am
Just to clarify a few misperceptions above. \
My background: I speak from experience as a classroom teacher (many years ago). I taught grade 3 in a small Massachusetts town, and high school French and German in Bladensburg, MD. I’ve given demonstration lesson on writing pedagogy at all grade levels.
Three-year pedagogical institutes. They do not give BA degrees (where they exist). They have their own degree. Some may be only two-year programs. And they do get very good students from their country’s high schools. They have no shortage of candidates. They can produce high-quality teachers who know history, geography, enough science and math, etc. because they admit only high-achieving high school students. That is why they can concentrate in a two- or three-year program on reading, writing, and arithmetic for the primary grades. Sandra Stotsky
Comment by Sandra Stotsky — November 17, 2010 @ 1:59 pm
I probably would agree with the “fire the bad teachers” concept as this is not easy but a starting point. It is about taking responsibility and so often school districts have their hands tied because of tenure that a bad teacher is stuck in the system.
One of the problems with the pay scale concept is that the “bad” teachers will still be there and they will just be resentful of those that deservedly earn higher pay.
Comment by j — November 17, 2010 @ 2:01 pm
Let’s think about this seriously.
What do scholars of literature know about teaching high school English?
What do real mathematicians know about teaching arithmatic or the most basic mathematical thinking.
What people who do not teach fail to understand is that the job of most high school teachers at most high shcools has almost nothing to do with those who teach their closest academic subjects in university. k12 teachers must motivate learners and diagnose fundmental misunderstandings while having an obligation to help EVERY student.
University academics generally can counsel those who lack interest, ability or basic understanding of their fields to drop their course, find another major or take time off.
My own advanced college level math work had nothing to do the math content and classroom needs of my high school students. My own advanced literature course work in college had absolutely nothing to do with what I had to do with my high school ELA students.
Yes, content knowledge is important for high teachers. They should know their subjects cold, be entirely facile with it to the point that it is quick, seemless and effortless. However, that is only because they need to focus their minds on the real challenges of their classrooms — pedagogy, connecting, inspring and diagnosing.
And if that’s the hardest part of their jobs, what sense is there in sending them to work without truly focusing on preparing them for that?
(Of course, it is also of CRITICAL importance that teachers understand how and why students struggle in their subejcts. Math whizzes who do not understand students of freak out about math do no one much good. Long time readers and who to write as well and do not understand why others do not will not reach their struggling who most need their help.))
Comment by ceolaf — November 17, 2010 @ 5:42 pm
As an HGSE grad (M.Ed./Cert.), I have to speak up for its being a solid program. The cohort was fairly intellectual and we really got into pedagogical issues…although we didn’t know as much as we thought we did! To sum up: not what I might have dreamed of, but definitely not a waste of time.
But the three things that have made me successful as a high school English teacher, to the extent that I have been, are the fact that I have a B.A. in English, the fact that I love kids AND my subject matter, and the fact that I was willing to be humbled when I came out thinking that content knowledge was enough. (If I had come out thinking that content knowledge was NOT essential, on the other hand, I would have been worse than humbled: I might never have been able to adapt to teaching a wide intellectual range of students, and I’d probably be out of the job by now.)
Despite my reasonably good experience in Ed School, I like Prof. Stotsky’s item #1, although I think that we’re not going to get enough teachers if we limit our selection to the top 25% of HS classes (her #2)…and I know that many VERY good teachers came from below that arbitrary marker. It all depends on the HS, too. Overly prescriptive stuff like that, without multiple criteria/flexible measures, is not going to lead us to a solution.
Let me add another idea: teachers — especially high-school teachers — should have held a full-time job other than as teacher. My eight years in business gave me invaluable context; that taught me more than Ed School did.
Comment by Carl Rosin — November 17, 2010 @ 11:42 pm
Carl: I somewhat agree with your idea that HS teachers should have held a full time job (other than teaching), in that it gives them a broader perspective of the work world. However, I can tell you that as a former teacher who did work outside of the schools first, it was very difficult to meet the state credentialing guidelines having not come through college preparing for a career in education. I tried to get my teaching license in California: First, I was told I could not enter the full time teaching credential program at any California university because I had never taken a course in “muli-cultural perspectives” (which was not offered outside California, as far as I know). So I worked as a teaching assistant/substitute for an entire year while I took a 3 credit multicultural course at a local college.
This was just one of the requirements to ENTER the credentialling program — Talk about putting prospective teachers off a career change to education! There were other requirements that, done while in college, would be pretty easy (such as observing other teachers mid-day on a workday) but were very difficult to do while holding down a full time job. I came away from the whole experience extremely unimpressed with the credentialling system for teachers (at least in California).
I think that all the emphasis on taking specific prescribed courses (especially PC ones having little to do with education) is misplaced. If a college graduate with a major in the subject he wishes to teach (or who has passed a rigorous subject matter competency test in the area) wants to teach, I think the school should be able to hire him — not make him wait two years to complete random prerequisites and then lose an entire year’s salary while attending a licensing program that probably does little to prepare him for the actual course or students he will eventually teach.
Comment by Attorney DC — November 18, 2010 @ 11:26 pm
@ceolaf
“What do scholars of literature know about teaching high school English?”
I don’t know, but it’s worth finding out. The fact is that the pedagogues have dominated American teacher-training for eons, and still there is scant evidence that “pedagogy, connecting, inspiring, and diagnosing” are somehow more decisive than thorough, specialized content knowledge in influencing academic achievement.
What would really happen if we supplanted pedagogical experts with subject-matter experts in K-12 classrooms? Again, I don’t know, but it certainly hasn’t been tried yet–and it could certainly do no worse than what the ed-school franchise has given us.
Comment by James O'Keeffe — November 19, 2010 @ 12:55 pm
I think that a change needs to occur with the entire education system. There is such a push in America for every student to go to college that we, as educators, are under an extreme amount of pressure to pass students through each grade. I have students who are in the 11th grade who read on a 3rd grade level. And these students think that they are college bound, and some of them get in to college. Being a teacher of German, I have experienced the German school system and I feel that some of their ideas are good. The German system puts students in “tracks” and allows students to learn a trade early on. The German system allows students to realize that not going to college is not a bad thing. These students who are not college bound thrive in their particular trade and are often a part of the working force by 18 years of age. Many of these students fare better than the ones that go to college. The American view on college needs to change in order for our education system to change.
Comment by Sarah Goho — November 20, 2010 @ 5:54 pm
This discussion reminds me of the aged, long-retired New Hampshire public school teacher that I knew some years ago and asked what her training to teach had been. She said that she had attended the local “normal school”, where she had some training in classroom management etc. but that mainly it was like going to high school all over again, math, English, history, geography, etc., only much more advanced and rigorous. The normal school has since evolved into an education school, associated with the local college.
Comment by Louisa Spencer — November 22, 2010 @ 3:55 pm
Home Schooling…
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