11-21-06 Teachers III

More on teachers this week.

As you know, New York City teachers must be certified to teach by the state of New York. There are two primary certification pathways. The traditional way to become a teacher is through a university teacher training program. A typical program would be a masters degree program in education, specializing in elementary, middle or secondary, perhaps with a further specialization in a subject area. To become certified, you must be recommended by your college or university and pass several standardized tests. For example, to become a middle school teacher, you might satisfactorily complete a degree in middle childhood education, and then pass the Liberal Arts & Science Test, the Secondary Assessment of Teaching Skills, and a multi-subject Content Specialty Test.

Education scholars (surprise!) have differing views about teacher education programs. Arthur Levine, the former head of Teachers College at Columbia University, co-authored a paper this year that concluded that many of the nation’s education schools “have inadequate curricula, low admissions and graduation standards, faculty disconnected from the K-12 schools, and insufficient quality control.” Here’s the one page press release that describes the report:

K:\Pool\Leigh's Weekly Reader\LevineEdTeachers_report_0906[1].pdf

Education schools were quick to disagree with the Levine report. The head of NCATE, the voluntary accreditation body for schools of education, had this to say:
“Perhaps most disturbing is the report’s implicit elitism. The author deplores the fact that the majority of teachers in America are prepared at less selective institutions. We might all wish that elite institutions would produce a more significant share of America’s teachers but, given the economics of higher education and the teaching profession, that has never occurred in the past, nor does it appear likely to happen anytime in the foreseeable future.” Here’s his response from the NCATE website:

http://www.ncate.org/public/0912_LevineReport.asp?ch=148

Another frequent writer about teacher education is Linda Darling-Hammond. She has a new book, Powerful Teacher Education, which profiles a number of teacher education programs she finds particularly effective, including New York’s Bank Street. One of her short articles on teacher education is here:

http://www.ascd.org/ed_topics/el199802_darlinghammond.html

The DOE is the national leader in developing teachers through alternative certification pathways. These pathways allow career-changers to start teaching immediately, while earning the master’s degree that leads to a full teaching license. Here are a couple websites that describe our main routes to alternative certification. If you want some inspiration, check out the testimonials from program participants.

New York City Teaching Fellows (the primary program through which we recruit alternatively certified teachers):

http://www.nyctf.org/about/fellowship.html

Teach for America (a national program from which we draw teachers):

http://www.teachforamerica.org/

The New Teachers Project (this is the non-profit organization that runs the day-to-day operations of our Teaching Fellows program)

http://www.tntp.org/cli/hlt_nyc_teachingfellows.html

We know that teachers matter. What we don’t understand very well is exactly how effective teachers differ from ineffective teachers, and what types of teacher training programs best prepare teachers to be effective in the classroom. One thing that is exciting about being in education now is that there is so much great research going on, including here at the DOE, to hone in on great teaching. More about that another week.