Left: James P. Comer
Right: Linda Darling-Hammond    
National Panel Co-Chairs

The National Expert Panel on ‘Increasing the Application of Knowledge about Child and Adolescent Development and Learning in Educator Preparation Programs,’ convened by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), met on May 20-21 at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for the first of four meetings over a two-year period. Dr. Yvonne Maddox, Deputy Director of NICHD, welcomed the panel, many of whom are NICHD grantees.

The panel’s charges are (1) to make recommendations to teacher educators about how child and adolescent development principles are taught and applied within the teacher education curriculum, (2) to recommend changes to NCATE standards to ensure better integration of child/adolescent development, and (3) to make recommendations to policymakers about the needed focus on child and adolescent development within the teacher preparation curriculum, and about changing the culture of schools to include scientific knowledge about child and adolescent development. The Comer School Development Program is one example of such an approach which has helped turn around low-performing schools.

 The panel contains a list of luminaries in the child and adolescent development field: James P. Comer, Maurice Falk Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center co-chairs the panel along with Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University. Robert Pianta, dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia is vice-chair.

James Comer, panel co-chair, says “I have long dreamed of making child development more central in teacher preparation programs, and I believe this panel will go a long way towards accomplishing that objective.”

Darling-Hammond says “I welcome the opportunity to work with James Comer and panel members on this exciting initiative. Teachers who understand and apply developmental principles in the classroom make those classrooms engaging learning environments where students thrive. The beneficiaries of this work will be America’s children.”

Arthur E. Wise, NCATE president, says “NCATE is an excellent mechanism to work changes through the teacher education community. We look forward to recommendations for this community.” Four NCATE board members are panel members.

The project is supported by the Strategic Knowledge Fund, co-funded by the Foundation for Child Development and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, with the assistance of the A. L. Mailman Family Foundation, Inc.

“This panel will help educators, including teachers and principals, who are knowledgeable about how children learn and develop over time, produce better outcomes for their students. In the past few decades, scientific knowledge about human development has expanded, but is not reflected in how schools of education are preparing American educators. This effort has the promise to address this gap between research and practice for the benefit of all students,” said Ruby Takanishi, president of the Foundation for Child Development.

This project builds on a previous collaboration between NCATE and NICHD which produced an initial report on the need for more application of the science of child/adolescent development to be incorporated into teacher preparation curricula. The current project will make specific recommendations to teacher educators, NCATE, and policymakers.

NCATE is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and the Council on Higher Education Accreditation as a specialized accrediting body for educator preparation in the United States. NCATE accredits 648 institutions with over 10,000 educator preparation programs. NCATE institutions produce over two-thirds of the nation’s new P-12 educators annually.

The Strategic Knowledge Fund is a partnership between the W. K.J. Kellogg Foundation and the Foundation for Child Development created to fund projects that increase knowledge about children, birth to eight years old and their families, particularly children who are at-risk for poor educational outcomes.