Change has become the well-used mantra in the past year, often as the start of a taunt or wisecrack.
Columnist David Brooks, however, is glad about change in the 21st century education world. He’s on the side of President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan in their determined push to keep education reform as a top priority. See “The Quiet Revolution,” New York Times, October 23, 2009.
Though I completely disagree with Brook’s despair that a District of Columbia Schools voucher program has been tossed, I do concur that the Obama administration is pushing for change in school districts and schools of education. (See post 11-4-09).
A Policy Information Report, December 2007, distributed by the Educational Testing Service, confirms the anecdotal changes I saw already underway in new teacher preparation before I retired.
The report’s findings looked at several factors about new teachers and experienced teachers taking courses to satisfy the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandate for highly-qualified teachers. It found that students who passed the exam in the second cohort studies (2002-2005) had higher GPA and SAT scores. Students from all ethnic groups and both genders showed consistent improvement in academic work.
The most interesting conclusion of the study suggested “that when policies target a common objective and employ a variety of strategies, real change can happen. …seldom have policy changes been associated with such positive impact in so little time.” Finally, a good thing from the NCLB legislation.
Problems still remain, of course. The second cohort had a lower number of passing students, attributable to the increased difficulty of the exam. Middle-school teachers, both new and experienced, had special difficulty passing the test.
The report looked at 20 states with teachers who take Praxis tests as part of their teacher preparation. They must pass all parts of the exam or they do not receive certification. Only 3 of the states, Nevada, Hawaii, and Oregon are in the west.
Some states have identified their own tests. California, for example, uses the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) when determining new teacher and highly-qualified teacher certification. The exams must be passed before teacher preparation classes are completed.
While the study demonstrates that teachers entering the profession are better prepared to do well in schools of education, other studies share additional issues that must be addressed to turn out excellent teachers for the variety of students in the 21st century United States.
Let’s look at two other reports Eduflack blogger Patrick Riccardo has noted.
Hope Street Group, a business group interested in better learning outcomes, released “Using Open Innovation to Improve Teacher Evaluation Systems.” While the report, developed mostly by teachers, is concerned with accountability in the classroom, some of its proposals could be part of further improvement in teacher preparation, attracting new professionals with good academic backgrounds. Here are several examples:
* Education schools should use clearly defined standards of quality instruction and assessment of a student teacher’s classroom performance.
* Student teacher evaluations that rely on observation and discussion must be in the hands of instructional leaders who have sufficient expertise and training.
* Information from teacher preparation evaluations should be comparable across schools of education and available to districts, and similar evaluations used to address new (and experienced) teachers.
The Forum for Education and Democracy’s Rethinking Learning Now group released its report “Effective Teachers, High Achievers,” outlining another model of high-quality teacher education. The government pays all expenses for teacher preparation; the student teacher receives a year of practice teaching in a clinical school; all beginning teachers are mentored; and ongoing professional development is embedded in the work week.
These guidelines would surely change the outlook for the teaching profession. If so, keep in mind President Obama’s key question-who is all this change for?
Kids, I hope.