In a sign of the increasing influence of teacher-preparation models that emphasize practical experience over coursework, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education will convene a high-powered panel this week to study ideas for updating student-teaching.

The recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation, Partnerships, and Improved Student Learning, which will be unveiled this spring, also will serve as a template for the Washington-based organization to upgrade its clinical-fieldwork accreditation standard.

"We've put this on a fast track," said James G. Cibulka, the president of NCATE. "We didn't want to create a commission that would study it for two or three years."

Since assuming the reins of the venerable accrediting body in 2008, Mr. Cibulka has unveiled a variety of initiatives designed to help teacher colleges experiment and spread best practices. Such practices include, for example, permitting programs to seek reaccreditation through an extensive research project with a partner school district. ("NCATE Offers Multiple Reaccreditation Paths," July 15, 2009.)

The latest announcement signals that the group will be opening up its accreditation standards to changes for the first time since they were last retooled, in 2000.
Expanding Fieldwork?

As part of its work, the panel will investigate a variety of ways to bolster clinical fieldwork -- including simulations, case studies, and analyses of teaching, in addition to student-teaching -- that takes place in schools. The goal, Mr. Cibulka said, is to conceive of teaching as a "practice-based profession" in the mold of medicine or clinical psychology and to update training accordingly.

Once the panel has released its report, it will form a group to guide changes to the standards and the accreditation process. NCATE will then pilot the changes at selected sites, much as it is now piloting its new reaccreditation pathways with selected colleges of education.

The work could also open up fresh sites for teacher-college accreditation, which is a voluntary process in the United States. Bringing alternative preparation models with a strong clinical focus, such as teacher "residencies," into the NCATE fold has been one of Mr. Cibulka's goals.

The residency is a hybrid preparation model that typically gives teacher-candidates a year of experience working in an urban school setting, supplemented by coursework that is provided on site. Some of the best-known examples are the Boston Teacher Residency program, the Boettcher Teachers Program in Denver, and the Academy for Urban Teacher Leadership in Chicago.

Around 20 other sites are scheduled to come online as part of a $43 million federal investment in teacher-preparation programs. None has been accredited thus far. ("Teacher 'Residencies' Get Federal Funding to Augment Training ," Oct. 14, 2009.)

And at least one state, Tennessee, is preparing to institute residency programs for all its undergraduate teacher-candidates, as part of a state initiative that includes NCATE.

In looking to such models, the NCATE panel could potentially set a longer, more rigorous bar for clinical fieldwork. The length of student-teaching is governed mainly by state law or by regulatory agencies, and typically requires traditional teacher-candidates to spend between 10 and 15 weeks as student-teachers.

Anissa Listak, the managing director of Urban Teacher Residency United, a Chicago-based network of sites that use the residency model, praised the NCATE announcement, but added that she hopes the panel will engage with the other core features of extensive clinical fieldwork, such as intensive monitoring and mentoring of teacher-candidates by experienced teachers.

"It's not just the length of time that matters, it's also what happens during that time that will better prepare teachers to work in our nation's schools," Ms. Listak said.

The NCATE blue-ribbon panel will include representatives from universities, the national teachers' unions, policymakers, and practitioners, including one from a teacher-residency program.

"It's going to have to be a collaborative effort on the part of a lot of stakeholders to make this shift, but I think it can be done," Mr. Cibulka explained. "The time is right, and there is a recognition that we all need to do things differently and work more effectively."

Continuing its teacher preparation reform initiative, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education announced Jan. 5 a panel of education stakeholders who will review research and recommend ways to improve clinical preparation of educators.

"NCATE will pilot proposed changes at sites currently supported by teacher quality grants located in Race to the Top states," the organization explained in a statement.

Chairing the NCATE Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation, Partnerships and Improved Student Learning are State University of New York Chancellor Nancy Zimpher and Colorado Commissioner of Education Dwight D. Jones.

"I am confident that this panel will help create new synergies at the local level, through collaborative partnerships between school districts, states, and higher education working to assess local needs," Zimpher said in a statement. "The operative phrase is 'joint work,' which will entail new expectations and roles for all stakeholders."

The 28 members of the panel are expected to release a report by the end of the year. The group will examine approaches to enhance clinical practices, including "more extensive use of simulations, case studies, analyses of teaching and other approximations of teaching, as well as sustained, intense, mentored school-embedded experiences," according to NCATE's statement.

NCATE had commissioned papers on induction support, residencies, professional development schools, and other forms of clinical preparation that will guide the panel's research. Members held their first meeting on Jan. 6 and 7.

Panel members

The NCATE panel continues the reform the organization launched last year as part of its accreditation redesign.

NCATE President James Cibulka said the panel's work will help to "establish new norms in educator preparation."

New standards are intended to emphasize LEA-university partnerships in developing in-field experiences to better prepare teachers for the diversity found in today's classrooms.

Such partnerships are represented on the panel, which includes school superintendents Chris Steinhauser of the Long Beach (Calif.) Unified School District and Beverly Hall of Atlanta Public Schools.

Panelists also include presidents of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association , as well as representatives from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education , the National Governors Association , the Council of Chief State School Officers , and the National Commission for Teaching and America's Future.

If you had a nickel for every time someone urged universities to collaborate with public schools, you'd be rich indeed. But a newly announced committee has some promise of actually making those university-district collaborations a reality: The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education has announced a heavyweight 28-member panel whose mission is to improve the preparation of new teachers.

In a statement, the council said that education schools should be restructured in ways that recognize that teaching is "a practice-based profession akin to medicine, nursing, or clinical psychology."

Better clinical training might include "sustained, intense, mentored school-embedded experiences," according to the statement. The committee, known as the NCATE Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation, Partnerships, and Improved Student Learning, will hold its first meeting later this week in Washington.

The committee's chairs are Dwight D. Jones, Colorado's commissioner of education, and Nancy L. Zimpher, chancellor of the State University of New York. (Ms. Zimpher has been writing about this topic for many years.)

Also on the committee are Arthur Levine, a persistent critic of education schools, and Sharon P. Robinson, president of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

The committee is expected to release its findings and recommendations by the end of 2010.

WASHINGTON -- After spending much of the fall calling for major reforms to the nation's teacher preparation programs, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's pleas appear to have begun to encourage action, as a major accreditor begins an effort this week aimed at bringing major changes to colleges of education and school districts alike.

More than two dozen teacher educators and education policy leaders will converge here Wednesday and Thursday for the first meeting of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education's (NCATE) Panel on Clinical Preparation, Partnerships and Improved Student Learning, charged with recommending scalable ways to improve in-the-classroom training and strengthen relationships between school districts and the colleges and universities that prepare their teachers. The recommendations, in turn, would probably form the basis for revisions to the council's accreditation standards.

NCATE -- which accredits more than 600 colleges and programs nationally that graduate two-thirds of new teachers -- has initiated what James Cibulka, its president, called a "redesign and transformation" aimed at making teaching a more respected profession with heightened preparation standards throughout.

The panel, he said, will "identify what the best practices are in strong clinical preparation and in preparing teachers to more effectively teach diverse learners." Efforts will focus on building partnerships between universities and making sure ideas are "relevant to policies at the national, state and local level." After this week's sessions, the panel will meet again in April before issuing a final report in May, a timeline he said is accelerated because the change is badly needed and the national environment is ripe for change.

In an October speech at Columbia University's Teachers College, Duncan said "America's university-based teacher preparation programs need revolutionary change -- not evolutionary tinkering." In another speech that month, at the University of Virginia, he suggested that "teaching should be one of our most revered professions, and teacher preparation programs should be among a university's most important responsibilities," an opinion he voiced again in a column published in the magazines of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers.

Among the ideas to be seriously considered by the panel: the restructuring and rebranding of teaching as a practice-based profession like medicine or nursing, with a more closely-monitored induction period -- akin to a doctor's residency -- and career-long professional development.

Tom Carroll, a member of the panel and president of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, said he wants the group "to respond with a very proactive, forward-looking vision of what we need to do to reinvent teacher preparation."

Panelist Arthur Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and former dean of Teachers College, said he hopes to see the group take steps to bridge "the yawning chasm of practice and theory between the universities and the schools." Schools, he said, should "become teaching hospitals," environments where undergraduate and graduate students preparing to become teachers can learn as they contribute to the instruction of primary and secondary students. Levine published a series of highly critical (and controversial) reports about the problems in teacher education several years ago.

Most teacher preparation programs already include some element of clinical practice, or student teaching, but Levine said the problem he has seen at dozens of programs was that there was "no connection between the clinical experience and what went on in the university." Ideally, he said, students "would teach in the morning, spend the afternoon learning theory connected to what went on that morning, and then preparing for the next day."

To Catherine Emihovich, a panelist who is dean of the University of Florida's College of Education, "the time has come" for major changes to teacher preparation. "Secretary Duncan has been pushing for change and the true understanding of teaching as a profession, and we are too," she said. "We must treat teaching as a recognized profession that occurs in stages rather than to see it in the old model where students study it in college, graduate in four years ... and then are working in the field and done with their education."

Sona K. Andrews, provost of Boise State University, said her institution's college of education is "actually one of the few that puts students in the classroom throughout the entire tenure that the student is here." The university has strong relationships with local school districts to ensure that the two entities are serving one anothers" needs.

The ivory tower and the little red school house must learn how to work together, Cibulka said. Student teachers must be placed with master teachers rather than "the teachers that say they need a student teacher." They need "strong relationships with supervising teachers and with other teachers in the school and other students learning in the preparation program."

That's possible, he said, only if the two kinds of institutions work together. "To be successful is going to have to be done in partnership. Working together, I think we're going to begin to actually change the profession."

There has been a great deal of criticism of teacher preparation programs and complaints that they are cash cows for universities that have failed to step back and assess whether their programs are responsive to the new classroom realities.

I think the complaints have been heard.

Are teacher education programs incorporating such new classroom approaches as distance learning? A new national panel will study that question.

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education issued a lengthy release today announcing a panel to revamp teacher training. NCATE accredits 667 schools, colleges and departments of education, which produce two-thirds of the nation’s new teacher graduates each year. The organization is recognized as an accrediting agency by the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

Here are excerpts from the release:

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education today announced the formation of an expert panel on clinical preparation and partnerships, signaling the beginning of a sea change in the preparation of the nation’s teachers. The work of the Panel, called the NCATE Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation, Partnerships and Improved Student Learning, will culminate in recommendations for restructuring the preparation of teachers to reflect teaching as a practice-based profession akin to medicine, nursing, or clinical psychology. Practice-based professions require not only a solid academic base, but strong clinical components, a supported induction experience, and ongoing opportunities for learning.

This redesign is intended to bring educator preparation into better alignment with the urgent needs of P-12 schools. Such changes in the way teachers and other P-12 educators are prepared potentially have far-ranging effects on the structure of schools of education.

The panel will establish a set of guiding principles for the clinical preparation of teachers so that preparation focuses more on building the expertise necessary for effective practice as professionals. This includes the development of candidates’ ability to understand and relate to their students and their needs, development of practical and evidence-based pedagogical skills, and the use of research evidence and judgment in practice.

Teaching has become a vastly different job requiring a different set of skills than it did 50 years ago. Greater diversity among students and the tailored instruction that many of them need, make the clinical aspects of teacher preparation ever more important. Minority students are now the majority in some states.

Students with special needs are mainstreamed as a result of disabilities law. English language learners from various countries are studying in classrooms across the nation, as well as students with individual learning plans who need individual help. In addition, some students are highly motivated while others dislike school, are disengaged, and are at risk of failure. Teachers are faced with more challenges than ever before in the history of the United States, and they are now being held accountable in ways that their predecessors were not.

Significantly enhanced clinical preparation may mean, for example, more extensive use of simulations, case studies, analyses of teaching and other approximations of teaching, as well as sustained, intense, mentored school-embedded experiences. Enhanced clinical preparation should give aspiring teachers the opportunity to integrate theory with practice; develop and test classroom management and pedagogical skills; hone their use of evidence in making professional decisions about practice; and understand and integrate the standards of their professional community. These clinical settings also provide the opportunity for evaluating not only what candidates know, but importantly, what they are able to do.

Finally, the professional preparation of teachers cannot be achieved by preparation programs acting alone. Intensive clinical preparation, especially when it is school-embedded, requires the collaboration of all the stakeholders represented on the Blue Ribbon Panel. The group will issue a report of its findings and recommendations when its work is completed, most likely near the end of 2010.

The Panel will examine characteristics and elements of clinical preparation in exemplary programs, will review the research, and will make recommendations as to how those characteristics and elements can be supported in policy and through funding formulas at every level—school, district, state and federal. The aim is to move from islands of innovation which are driving student achievement in certain schools or districts to a culture in which excellence is the norm.

In a follow-up phase, the Blue Ribbon Panel will form a working group to guide changes in NCATE standards and accreditation processes to support more clinically-based educator preparation and working partnerships between preparation programs and P-12 schools. NCATE will pilot proposed changes at sites currently supported by teacher quality grants located in Race to the Top states. A second phase of the work will be guiding the process through NCATE policy boards to implement changes in NCATE accreditation standards to help support the Panel’s recommendations and vision.

Boise State Provost Sona Andrews is part of an expert panel initiated by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). Called the Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation, Partnerships and Improved Student Learning, the group includes experts in education research, policy, teaching and learning, and leaders in higher education and P-12 schools at state and local levels across the country.

The panel will convene for the first time Jan. 6-7 to work on recommendations for restructuring the preparation of teachers to reflect teaching as a practice-based profession akin to medicine, nursing or clinical psychology. The goal is to bring educator training into better alignment with the urgent needs of P-12 schools.

The panel will review characteristics and elements of clinical preparation in exemplary programs and recommend how they can be supported in policy. It also will establish a set of guiding principles for the clinical preparation of teachers that focuses more on building the expertise necessary for effective professional practice, including the development of candidates’ ability to understand and relate to their students and their needs, development of practical and evidence-based pedagogical skills, and the use of research evidence and judgment in practice. The aim is to move from islands of innovation that are driving student achievement to a culture of excellence in education.

The panel will issue a report of its findings and final recommendations, most likely near the end of 2010. NCATE administrators are hopeful that the material will motivate a sea change in the preparation of America’s teachers and the accreditation standards for preparation providers.

“Raising P-12 student achievement in America is an imperative; using our combined resources in new ways to focus on urgent P-12 needs will help reach that goal,” said panel co-chair and Colorado commissioner of education Dwight Jones. “I see this panel as a major step forward in restructuring educator preparation throughout the nation.”

NCATE accredits 667 schools, colleges and departments of education — which produce two-thirds of the nation’s new teacher graduates annually — and is recognized as a specialized accrediting body by the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

NCATE’s Panel on Clinical Preparation, Partnerships and Improved Student Learning signals the beginning of a dramatic change in the preparation of the nation’s teachers, seeking to reflect teaching as a practice-based profession akin to medicine, nursing, or clinical psychology.

Napa, CA (Vocus) January 6, 2010 -- Monica Martinez, president of New Tech Network -- which supports and implements high schools marked by project-based learning in a technology-rich environment -- is part of a ground-breaking panel that will look at ways to restructure the preparation of teachers to reflect the needs of the 21st-century learner.

The panel was formed by the Washington, D.C.-based National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, or NCATE, which sanctions more than 600 colleges and programs nationally that produce two-thirds of the nation’s new teacher graduates. NCATE’s Panel on Clinical Preparation, Partnerships and Improved Student Learning signals the beginning of a dramatic change in the preparation of the nation’s teachers, seeking to reflect teaching as a practice-based profession akin to medicine, nursing, or clinical psychology.

“I believe this is some of the most important work that we can undertake at this point in time,” said Martinez, who holds a doctorate in higher education administration from New York University. “It’s imperative that our teachers are prepared to understand and relate to the unique needs of today’s learners, and I commend the NCATE for assembling this diverse group. When our teachers are more effective as professionals, aligning their skills with the needs of P-12 schools, our education system simply works better.”

The panel is meeting in Washington today and Thursday.

As part of its work, the panel will examine characteristics and elements of clinical preparation in exemplary programs, review the research, and make recommendations as to how those characteristics and elements can be supported in policy and through funding formulas at every level—school, district, state and federal. The aim is to move from islands of innovation which are driving student achievement in certain schools or districts to a culture in which excellence is the norm. The group will issue a report of its findings and recommendations when its work is completed, most likely near the end of 2010.

Nancy Zimpher, Chancellor, State University of New York System, and co-chair of the panel, said, “I am confident that this panel will help create new synergies at the local level, through collaborative partnerships between school districts, states, and higher education working to assess local needs. The operative phrase is 'joint work,' which will entail new expectations and roles for all stakeholders.”

Dwight Jones, Commissioner of Education, Colorado, who co-chairs the panel with Zimpher, said he sees the panel as a major step forward in restructuring educator preparation throughout the nation. “NCATE has taken a bold step in creating this panel, representative of all stakeholders, to help move forward changes in educator preparation which will better meet P-12 urgent needs. Raising P-12 student achievement in America is an imperative; using our combined resources in new ways to focus on urgent P-12 needs will help reach that goal.”

The more than two dozen members of the panel include experts in teacher education and education policy. As a follow-up, the group will form a working group to guide changes in NCATE standards and accreditation processes to support more clinically-based educator preparation and working partnerships between preparation programs and P-12 schools. NCATE will pilot proposed changes at sites currently supported by teacher quality grants located in Race to the Top states.

A second phase of the work will be guiding the process through NCATE policy boards to implement changes in NCATE accreditation standards to help support the panel’s recommendations and vision.

About New Tech Network: New Tech Network is a school development organization that supports the start-up and implementation of innovative high schools. There are currently more than 40 schools across the country, including schools in Indiana, Illinois, North Carolina, New York, Oregon, Colorado, Texas, California and Louisiana. It is a subsidiary of KnowledgeWorks Foundation.

About KnowledgeWorks: KnowledgeWorks Foundation strives to be the leader in developing and implementing innovative and effective approaches to high school education in the United States. The organization primarily focuses on redesigning urban high schools, developing STEM and Early College high schools, and supporting student-centered approaches to delivering real learning and results in our schools.

###

New Tech Network
Byron McCauley
(513) 929-1310
E-mail Information

Washington, D.C. - The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) today announced the formation of an expert panel on clinical preparation and partnerships, signaling the beginning of a sea change in the preparation of the nation's teachers. The work of the Panel, called the NCATE Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation, Partnerships and Improved Student Learning, will culminate in recommendations for restructuring the preparation of teachers to reflect teaching as a practice-based profession akin to medicine, nursing, or clinical psychology. Practice-based professions require not only a solid academic base, but strong clinical components, a supported induction experience, and ongoing opportunities for learning. This redesign is intended to bring educator preparation into better alignment with the urgent needs of P-12 schools. Such changes in the way teachers and other P-12 educators are prepared potentially have far-ranging effects on the structure of schools of education.

Dr Nancy Zimpher, Chancellor, State University of New York System, and Dr. Dwight Jones, Commissioner of Education, Colorado, will co-chair the panel. Other panel members include experts in education research, policy, teaching and learning and leaders in higher education and P-12 schools at the state and local level. The panel will establish a set of guiding principles for the clinical preparation of teachers so that preparation focuses more on building the expertise necessary for effective practice as professionals. This includes the development of candidates' ability to understand and relate to their students and their needs, development of practical and evidence-based pedagogical skills, and the use of research evidence and judgment in practice.

Teaching has become a vastly different job requiring a different set of skills than it did 50 years ago. Greater diversity among students and the tailored instruction that many of them need, make the clinical aspects of teacher preparation ever more important. Minority students are now the majority in some states. Students with special needs are mainstreamed as a result of disabilities law. English language learners from various countries are studying in classrooms across the nation, as well as students with individual learning plans (IEPs) who need individual help. In addition, some students are highly motivated while others dislike school, are disengaged, and are at risk of failure. Teachers are faced with more challenges than ever before in the history of the United States, and they are now being held accountable in ways that their predecessors were not.

Significantly enhanced clinical preparation may mean, for example, more extensive use of simulations, case studies, analyses of teaching and other approximations of teaching, as well as sustained, intense, mentored school-embedded experiences. Enhanced clinical preparation should give aspiring teachers the opportunity to integrate theory with practice; develop and test classroom management and pedagogical skills; hone their use of evidence in making professional decisions about practice; and understand and integrate the standards of their professional community. These clinical settings also provide the opportunity for evaluating not only what candidates know, but importantly, what they are able to do.

Finally, the professional preparation of teachers cannot be achieved by preparation programs acting alone. Intensive clinical preparation, especially when it is school-embedded, requires the collaboration of all the stakeholders represented on the Blue Ribbon Panel. The group will issue a report of its findings and recommendations when its work is completed, most likely near the end of 2010.

Some schools of education have already developed rich partnerships with districts aimed at boosting P-12 achievement, especially in low-performing schools. NCATE featured a few examples of these schools of education at a June press briefing announcing a redesign of accreditation to help schools of education move to a target level of excellence on accreditation standards, and to encourage institutions to create Transformation Initiatives which focus on P-12 learning needs and improve the evidentiary base of the profession.

The Panel will examine characteristics and elements of clinical preparation in exemplary programs, will review the research, and will make recommendations as to how those characteristics and elements can be supported in policy and through funding formulas at every level -- school, district, state and federal. The aim is to move from islands of innovation which are driving student achievement in certain schools or districts to a culture in which excellence is the norm.

In a follow-up phase, the Blue Ribbon Panel will form a working group to guide changes in NCATE standards and accreditation processes to support more clinically-based educator preparation and working partnerships between preparation programs and P-12 schools. NCATE will pilot proposed changes at sites currently supported by teacher quality grants located in Race to the Top states. A second phase of the work will be guiding the process through NCATE policy boards to implement changes in NCATE accreditation standards to help support the Panel's recommendations and vision.

Dr. James Cibulka, president of NCATE, said, "The Panel is jointly chaired by leaders from higher education and the states. States, districts, and colleges and universities must work in close collaboration and in new ways to meet urgent P-12 learning needs." Cibulka commented on the Panel's influence on accreditation: "The Panel's work will inform future changes to the NCATE standards and process to support a focus on P-12 student learning to maximum advantage, and to ensure the standards and process truly measure quality in appropriate ways. Revised accreditation standards will help establish new norms in educator preparation," Cibulka continued.

Dr. Nancy Zimpher, Chancellor of the State University of New York System and co-chair of the panel, said, "I am confident that this panel will help create new synergies at the local level, through collaborative partnerships between school districts, states, and higher education working to assess local needs. The operative phrase is 'joint work,' which will entail new expectations and roles for all stakeholders."

Dr. Dwight Jones, Commissioner of Education, Colorado, and panel co-chair, said, "NCATE has taken a bold step in creating this Panel, representative of all stakeholders, to help move forward changes in educator preparation which will better meet P-12 urgent needs. Raising P-12 student achievement in America is an imperative; using our combined resources in new ways to focus on urgent P-12 needs will help reach that goal. I see this Panel as a major step forward in restructuring educator preparation throughout the nation."

The first meeting of the Panel is scheduled for January 6-7, 2010.

Commissioned papers on induction support, residencies, professional development schools, and other forms of clinical preparation have preceded the work of this Panel, and have led to its formation.

NCATE accredits 667 schools, colleges and departments of education, which produce two-thirds of the nation's new teacher graduates annually in the United States, and is recognized as a specialized accrediting body by the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

Education leaders say they plan to make teaching a more respected profession by reforming the way teachers are trained and improving the relationship between colleges and school districts. A panel of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, which accredits more than 600 colleges and programs that train teachers, will meet this week to develop recommendations for reform. The panel of educators and policy experts will "identify what the best practices are in strong clinical preparation and in preparing teachers to more effectively teach diverse learners," says NCATE President James Cibulka.

NATIONAL NEWS

Education Secretary Arne Duncan's Legacy as Chicago Schools Chief Questioned

From The Washington Post

Soon after Arne Duncan left his job as schools chief here to become one of the most powerful U.S. education secretaries ever, his former students sat for federal achievement tests. This month, the mathematics report card was delivered: Chicago trailed several cities in performance and progress made over six years.

Making 'Teacher Identifiers' Work

From Education Week (LOGIN REQUIRED)

The "teacher identifier" – a unique number that links pertinent data to individual teachers – is either a key to unlocking the mysteries of successful classrooms, or just another way to pummel an already beleaguered teaching corps. It all depends on your point of view.

Gauging the Dedication of Teacher Corps Grads

From The New York Times

A new study finds those who fulfilled their two-year Teach for America commitment showed lower rates of civic involvement afterward than those who declined to join or dropped out.

Education Leadership: Skills to Fix Failing Schools

From The New York Times

Fixing failing schools has become a national focus. This means new education leadership jobs: running charter schools, directing turnarounds of troubled schools and founding nonprofits with creative answers to education challenges. Such work demands educators who are more M.B.A./policy-wonk than Mr. Chips, which is why universities are unveiling degree programs that pull professors from schools of education, business and public policy.

NEWS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

Conn. Makes Significant Changes in Support Program for New Teachers

From The Housatonic Times (CT)

The state of Connecticut, which since the late 1980s has had one of the top-rated teacher evaluation programs in the country, has recently eliminated a longstanding component that featured portfolios for new teachers, instead implementing a new initiative in which beginning teachers spend more time reviewing materials and strategies with their mentors.

Michigan Teaching School Tries Something New

From National Public Radio

At the University of Michigan School of Education, Dean Deborah Ball and her faculty have taken apart their training program and reassembled it, trying to figure out what skills teachers really need. The program overhaul – an ongoing process that began five years ago – will cut the number of classes students must take, and it will turn time in the classroom into an experience that is tightly focused on problem solving.

R.I. Is Ready for Change in Education

From The Providence Journal

The sense of urgency that Deborah A. Gist brought to her job as the state’s top education leader six months ago has only intensified since then, with the new commissioner and her staff at the state Department of Education rolling out a dizzying array of reforms. In early January, Gist will launch the state’s ambitious bid to capture millions of dollars in federal grants in the competitive Race to the Top grant program, which rewards dramatic changes.

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS / REPORTS

Latino Education and Advocacy Day

"A Day of Courageous Conversations," March 29, 2010

The College of Education at California State University-San Bernardino is pleased to announce a free one-day summit on Latino education and advocacy. Keynote speakers include Juan Sepulveda, director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans; Dolores Huerta, cofounder of United Farm Workers; and Sylvia Mendez, civil rights activist. The LEAD summit also will be webcast to participating universities throughout the country. The summit is cosponsored by AACTE.

NCATE Announces Blue-Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education today announced the formation of the NCATE Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation, Partnerships, and Improved Student Learning. Nancy Zimpher, chancellor of the State University of New York System, and Dwight Jones, commissioner of education in Colorado, will cochair the panel, which is expected to issue recommendations for restructuring the preparation of teachers to reflect teaching as a practice-based profession akin to medicine, nursing, or clinical psychology.

Contact: David Belsky, David.Belsky@suny.edu
Office of Communications
State University of New York
State University Plaza, Albany, NY 12246
518-443-5311
www.suny.edu

For Immediate Release: Thursday, Jan. 7, 2010

Washington, D.C. – The State University of New York today announced that Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher will co-chair a Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation, Partnerships and Improved Student Learning. The panel is organized by NCATE – The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education.

Colorado Education Commissioner Dwight Jones will serve as Chancellor Zimpher’s co-chair.

The Panel is charged with developing recommendations for restructuring the preparation of teachers to reflect teaching as a practice-based profession similar to medicine, nursing, or clinical psychology. Practice-based professions require not only a solid academic base, but also strong clinical components and ongoing opportunities for learning. This redesign, which will be grounded in partnerships between higher education, local school districts and other stakeholders, will potentially have far-reaching effects on the structure of schools of education.

Chancellor Zimpher, a teacher educator by profession, has worked throughout her career to reform and strengthen the clinical experience of teachers – especially in urban and challenged schools – and has been published widely on the subject.

“I’m confident that the NCATE Panel’s work will move the dial on the principles, standards and practices around teacher preparation, said Zimpher. “This group brings together some of the most innovative minds in education across many sectors, and together we can model the collaborative partnerships we need to repair our broken education pipeline.”

Chancellor Zimpher has a strong track record as a leader of effective collaborative educational partnerships. As President of the University of Cincinnati, she co-founded the STRIVE program, a partnership among a broad spectrum of community stakeholders to improve student success.