Study: Teacher prep programs get failing grades

[SharonF]

From NPR this morning:

www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=192765776&m=192996766

I have been concerned about the quality of teacher training for years. And for the two years my son was in college taking courses to be a high school science teacher, I was surprised what coursework required and what was not. But I agree with one person interviewed for NPR's story: it appears the study used insufficient criteria to measure a college's effectiveness.

A well-written course description does not mean that college does a great job of educating would-be teachers. The real proof is how effective teachers are in a real classroom. Especially if that classroom is full of kids with varying learning styles, innate abilities and interests, parental support, cultural expectations, outside distractions and coping ability.

Quoting Arthur Levine: "the measure of the success of any teacher education program is how well the graduates are doing with the children in their classes. That's the only thing that matters — not the process by which we prepared those teachers."

[healthy11]

I heard about this on today's morning news, and feel it confirms what many of us have been saying all along.

In the article, it says, "...the National Council on Teacher Quality study of more than 1,100 colleges of education found that 7 out of 10 programs did not adequately teach candidates how to teach reading. Nine out of 10 did a poor job preparing them to teach basic subjects like English, math, science or history. Training in classroom management and the use of student data was lacking. The damage to K-12 education is enormous..."

I realize the above addresses inadequacies in "neurotypical" teacher training. When I've followed the stories of Millermom members like Bros, who is in school to become a Special Education Teacher, and realize that even he has NOT received better training to teach reading or other subjects, it just emphasizes the magnitude of the problem we're facing. Students who struggle are going to continue to face significant obstacles until the educators are better educated, and those "teachers" who can't meet the needs of students in their classrooms make way for ones who can.

[michellea]

I saw this too, and I agree that many teacher programs are not complete. That said, I have some major questions about the study itself and how it measures quality.

I also think part of the problem is that as a culture, the US does not place the same kind of value/prestige on teachers as they do in other countries. In most European countries, teachers are considered on par with physicians, engineers and other professionals. This helps to attract and retain highly qualified and talented teachers. Other countries also have a national curriculum and this helps to focus teacher training on one set of content standards. Our curriculums vary by district, our laws vary by state. It's hard to focus in at a detailed level - which is why school districts have to jump in where colleges leave off.

[bros]

Jun 18, 2013 8:43:09 GMT -5 healthy11 said:

I heard about this on today's morning news, and feel it confirms what many of us have been saying all along.

In the article, it says, "...the National Council on Teacher Quality study of more than 1,100 colleges of education found that 7 out of 10 programs did not adequately teach candidates how to teach reading. Nine out of 10 did a poor job preparing them to teach basic subjects like English, math, science or history. Training in classroom management and the use of student data was lacking. The damage to K-12 education is enormous..."

I realize the above addresses inadequacies in "neurotypical" teacher training. When I've followed the stories of Millermom members like Bros, who is in school to become a Special Education Teacher, and realize that even he has NOT received better training to teach reading or other subjects, it just emphasizes the magnitude of the problem we're facing. Students who struggle are going to continue to face significant obstacles until the educators are better educated, and those "teachers" who can't meet the needs of students in their classrooms make way for ones who can.

Yeah. I just took a course in the fall on Classroom Management. It was good, but it seemed like it was material that should've been presented earlier. Also that the college of education should've had one unified lesson plan format, or taught us the different lesson plan formats districts throughout the state use (from how I gather it in the classroom, there are like 2-3 types of lesson plans, but I don't know)

I have received no training on how to teach reading. I have taken a course on reading in the elementary grades and one on language arts and literacy, in the former we learned how to do a running record and in the latter the teacher didn't know how to teach the course and retaught the previous course, as it was her first time teaching an undergraduate version of the course. The only thing I learned in the latter course was the Cloze Procedure (to test full comprehension, remove every fifth word from a passage, then give it to the student, they should be able to fill it out.

During one of my classes in the fall, 26 out of 30 students (I was one of the four) had never seen what an IEP looked like, until I showed a copy of my IEP to the class during a presentation and did a Q&A on IEPs.

I was shocked at how little they knew about special education, or the smoke and mirrors routines that districts love to do to prevent parents and students from learning their rights.

[SharonF]

bros--

Thanks for sharing your personal experiences.

I've wondered how frequently the professors of education go to observe K-12 classrooms. How often they attend IEP meetings. How often they attend "teacher training" sessions held by a school district or a school principal--to see what is being emphasized and valued.

My fear is that professors spend all or most of their time teaching their own college or post grad courses or doing research at their own universities. I wonder if they really have a solid, current working knowledge of what teachers face every day.

If they don't understand the challenges of day-to-day discipline, how can professors teach effective classroom management? If they haven't sat in on a large number of IEP meetings, how can they teach future teachers what to expect before, during and after those meetings? If they don't see the wide variation from principal to principal, or LEA to LEA, how can professors prepare students for those variabilities?

Your statement that you've received no training on how to teach reading is so disheartening. But from my years of being on these message boards, I guess I'm not surprised. I'm afraid too few teachers know how to teach reading. Or how to identify a reading LD. No wonder so many of our kids struggle for so long.

[bros]

Jun 18, 2013 15:00:37 GMT -5 SharonF said:

bros--

Thanks for sharing your personal experiences.

I've wondered how frequently the professors of education go to observe K-12 classrooms. How often they attend IEP meetings. How often they attend "teacher training" sessions held by a school district or a school principal--to see what is being emphasized and valued.

My fear is that professors spend all or most of their time teaching their own college or post grad courses or doing research at their own universities. I wonder if they really have a solid, current working knowledge of what teachers face every day.

If they don't understand the challenges of day-to-day discipline, how can professors teach effective classroom management? If they haven't sat in on a large number of IEP meetings, how can they teach future teachers what to expect before, during and after those meetings? If they don't see the wide variation from principal to principal, or LEA to LEA, how can professors prepare students for those variabilities?

Your statement that you've received no training on how to teach reading is so disheartening. But from my years of being on these message boards, I guess I'm not surprised. I'm afraid too few teachers know how to teach reading. Or how to identify a reading LD. No wonder so many of our kids struggle for so long.

No research is done at my school. Most of the faculty have side projects that may involve research, though.

One of my professors was a special education consultant for school districts in Northern NJ for a while until the economy tanked.

All of the professors have classroom experience. One of my professors last fall had a son with ADHD, so she knew what it was like, and she and I tried to impart on the class the importance of differentiating instruction, etc.

Since most of the class didn't understand why students wouldn't just be put in a resource room - they didn't understand that a lot of schools are eliminating the special education continuum for the sake of saving some money

[jisp]

On respect: I agree with Michellea that the culture in the US has not respected teaching. In the past teachers salaries barely compared to those who were plumbers or mechanics.

But I see hope. I keep running into parents of children my daughter knew growing up, who tell me their children are going into teaching. My Nephew an ivy league graduate is going into teaching. So is his wife. These are smart intelligent and creative kids who are good self-learners. They want to make a difference in the world, Although I have issues with programs like Teach for America (mostly because of the way it handles training), I do credit it with raising the status of teaching as a potential career and inspiring young people to consider it.

But working against this trend is the problem we have in the US with income inequality. What it takes to be a good teacher in rural Idaho is different than what it takes to be a good teacher in Louisiana or the inner city of Chicago. Many teachers talk about kids walking into their classrooms who are just not prepared for learning. There is a critical window from second trimester of pregnancy to age 5 that we ignore and are unwilling to confront. Poor children already start school at a disadvantage and that gap grows by leaps and bounds as they move through the school system. centerforeducation.rice.edu/slc/LS/30MillionWordGap.html. In addition poor children are exposed to poor nutrition, possible fetal alcohol, lead, pesticides and other toxins resulting in kids who probably also have some neurological disadvantages as well. And we ignore this. Sure we have WIC and Head Start programs. But these programs barely scratch the surface. When my daughter did some time observing in a clinic in her city she was shocked to see young women, younger than her, come in pregnant who already had multiple children. These women already at a disadvantage themselves, because of poverty and dropping out of school are now giving birth to another generation who will suffer even more. I won't get into the politics behind why these young women are having babies they don't want or can't parent, but I do want to say that our failure as a society to admit that this is a problem and our decision to ignore it rather than address it, is going to impact our education system. Teachers who serve these populations become burnt out because it is a loose-loose situation. It is very hard to combat this type of poverty. Teachers who work with these types of students need an entirely different curriculum than teachers who are serving middle/upper middle class communities. The same way an ER doctor requires different training than a primary care doctor. And unfortunately many of our best and brightest head off to teach in these communities hoping to make a difference. They become discouraged and then give up on teaching and then we loose future educators.

Meanwhile in middle and upper middle class districts we spend a huge amount of time and energy on teacher development with "Educationese". I personally don't have a lot of respect for "Educationese" that is taught in ed-schools. It is too similar to the business school crap. My daughter was complaining about that because this summer her coursework includes a class on management and she is soooo frustrated. As she said last night, "I don't need to go stand on a towel with my classmates and be asked to flip it over to learn how to work collaboratively with them." I think we sometimes forget that good teachers are not made, they evolve. Teaching is an art. My kid's best teachers did not learn what they knew from some education class. They learned how to teach from having good mentors and experience. More importantly a teacher who has themselves had a talented teacher, will probably absorb how that teacher taught and pass that type of teaching down.

A good teacher knows when they can not help a child (For example one tutor that the school had come to our house spent 45 minutes trying to teach our son geometry and came and found me and said, "I can't help him. I don't know what is going on but the reason he can not do the work is something that I am not trained to handle.") Teachers should know their content well enough that they know when they have come up against a problem with a child learning that is not based on content and refer that child to a specialists. Specialists should indeed be trained in brain and neuro-cognitive research but they do not necessarily need to be experts on content.

And finally I do believe a national curriculum would help, but we do not need more state tests to see if teachers are teaching this curriculum. The curriculum needs to be such that teachers can be creative with it and push it's boundaries and explore ideas and concepts with their kids as they see fit. And we need to bring arts back into schools, because children who are exposed to arts do in fact do better academically even if the arts are not content specific or directly related to the curriculum.

[sleepy]

Jun 19, 2013 5:16:19 GMT -5 jisp said:

A good teacher knows when they can not help a child (For example one tutor that the school had come to our house spent 45 minutes trying to teach our son geometry and came and found me and said, "I can't help him. I don't know what is going on but the reason he can not do the work is something that I am not trained to handle.") Teachers should know their content well enough that they know when they have come up against a problem with a child learning that is not based on content and refer that child to a specialists. Specialists should indeed be trained in brain and neuro-cognitive research but they do not necessarily need to be experts on content.

I disagree with your last sentence. Can you explain why the specialist doesn't have to be an expert in the content?

[jisp]

Sure Sleepy. For many kids, like my own, the issue with being able to learn has nothing to do with content. They are perfectly capable of learning the concepts and the material that they need to master. But the issue is that they need to learn how to learn and they need the tools to decode text, get material into their long term memory where it can be manipulated, organize their thinking in a structured way so they are more efficient etc....

An Orton Gillingham tutor and a cognitive psychologist do not need to have a master level knowledge in mathematics, biology or history. But they should be experts in how the brain works and how to teach certain children how to take in information and then access that information.

In my son's case those who worked with him knew the content of what my son was trying to learn because they were "educated" but they were not experts in the content. I hope that makes sense

[sleepy]

Thanks. In your example, you use an Orton Gillingham tutor. That tutor has content knowledge in that he is an expert in the content of reading (instruction). This is why I think that a specialist needs to also be an expert in content knowledge.

I don't mean to imply that the specialists may need to develop other skills in the student that will transfer over to other classes in the long run, but the specialist that has both content knowledge and the knowledge to understand the brain and how it works in order to meld the two together for the student is really what is needed.

[jisp]

Sleepy reading instruction is not "Content". Content as education people speak about it refers to the material you are reading...the literature, the history, science mathematics. An Orton Gillingham instructor does not need to be trained in how to analyze Shakespeare, interpret a theme from a novel, dissect a historical passage for accuracy. They need to know how to teach decoding. But they are not teaching vocabulary or literature to their students. Does that make sense?

[sleepy]

I understand what you are saying about content and eduspeak, however, I can't find another word to describe what I want to say. I will only try to point out that I believe "content" in the terms of what a student needs to know and "content" in terms of what a teacher need to know are different in my mind even if I don't have the proper word for the latter. So, I guess I will just drop the subject.

[bros]

My college just started blasting this link all around

www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/06/controverial_teacher_prep_ranking_gives_top_grades_to_kean_rutgers-camden_seton_hall.html

My college got 3 1/2 stars out of 4 from the ranking.

[michellea]

Glad to hear it, Bros

Sleepy - maybe you mean that a teacher should be well versed, trained and experienced in the methodology they are using? IE if they are teaching reading using the Wilson method, they should understand the Wilson method backward and forward. However, this does not mean that they need to know the content of Shakespeare or US History - two content areas that people use reading to access.

[SharonF]

I guess it might depend on how you define "specialist." If the specialist specializes in teaching reading, he or she needs to understand all of the fundamentals of reading, how the brain learns to read, the many variations on how different brains (such as LD brains) learn to read, AND know how to teach reading comprehension as well as reading fluency. So that reading specialist needs to know the content of the material as well as the methodologies for teaching reading. If that's what sleepy is talking about, I agree with her.

But if the specialist is the school psych who administers the WISC and the WJ, their knowledge of curriculum "content" would probably be different than the reading specialist.

And if the specialist is a private neuropsychologist who is evaluating a student for possible learning disabilities, the doctor may not need to be an expert on the content of 5th grade curriculum. But the doctor should specialize in cognitive differences or other barriers that might keep the student from accessing that curriculum.

[kewpie]

My good friend who had 2 dyslexic children is currently in a masters/credentialing program for special education and it KILLS her how dylexia is totally ignored in the curriculum. If she askes about it, it just gets pushed aside. Ironically many of the student teachers REALLY WANT to know how to teach these kids and re willing to do what they need to do but they are NOT getting the training because the professers don't know what to teach!!!

[SharonF]

kewpie--

If professors ignore the existance of learning disabilities (such as dyslexia) when instructing would-be teachers, could that explain why so many teachers also ignore LDs?

Or if professors teach a skewed (not accurate) version of LDs, could that be why so many of my kids' teachers came to IEP meetings with cockamamie claims about what LDs are and are not?

[bros]

Jun 20, 2013 13:16:45 GMT -5 SharonF said:

kewpie--

If professors ignore the existance of learning disabilities (such as dyslexia) when instructing would-be teachers, could that explain why so many teachers also ignore LDs?

Or if professors teach a skewed (not accurate) version of LDs, could that be why so many of my kids' teachers came to IEP meetings with cockamamie claims about what LDs are and are not?

I've had some professors say that ADHD is not a learning disability and the student should be given an IEP under ED if they have ADHD.

Other times, i've had professors ask for examples of learning disabilities, and I am the only one raising my hand.

[healthy11]

Kewpie and Bros, you are both talking about SPECIAL ED training, and how woefully inadequate it is in terms of addressing reading instruction. That's disturbing, since we all know that the earlier intervention is begun, the better the long-term outcomes for many students. Our kids should not be "guinea pigs" for teachers to guess how to teach them.

Unfortunately, "regular elementary school teachers" get far less training than special ed teachers, and if they aren't even able to recognize/properly identify struggling children, is it any wonder they have no clue about methodologies to use to instruct them?

If you ask me, our discussion reinforces the point of the original article: The damage to K-12 Education is enormous, and
in large part, it is due to the lousy education that future educators get!

[bros]

At my school (rated a top school by this survey, allegedly), gen ed majors only have to take one course on special education. The description of this course:
"Explore issues related to adaptation and modification for those with disabilites in American Society. Settings such as the school, home, and workplace will be examined."

Yes, they spell disabilities incorrectly in the official course description.

Apparently the back half of the course is pretty much giving the students the answers to the ~150 question multiple choice final so everyone gets a great grade.

[healthy11]

Grrrrrrrrr..........

[dihicks6]

I am grateful that there are still some elementary teachers out there who recognize problems early, like my gd's pre-K teacher. Some don't bother and pass them right on into Kindergarten or the next grade.

[dwolen]

Is there a state exam that is standardized nationally, that teachers must take before getting a job?
In my field, nursing, prospective students rate a college of nursing based on the "pass" rate of the licensure exam. Colleges of nursing base their curriculum on what is on the exam.
Similarly, in graduate nursing programs, the pass rate on the specialty certification exams, which are required to apply for a specialty license (for example, as a family nurse practitioner)the curriculum must cover areas on the exam.

Perhaps teachers need residency programs before they fully graduate: a year or two of teaching in special ed, general ed, inner city, suburban, social problem ridden, etc., with professors' supervision, and in school supervision. During this time, student-residents could have an and academic/practice based research project. This would add to the body of research in education, and orient future teachers toward integrating research into their teaching practice. Easy for me to dream up stuff for other professionals to do!

I interacted with some pretty lousy teachers, who had no interest in learning any thing new. I also interacted with some good teachers.

[bros]

Jun 23, 2013 17:22:38 GMT -5 dwolen said:

Is there a state exam that is standardized nationally, that teachers must take before getting a job?
In my field, nursing, prospective students rate a college of nursing based on the "pass" rate of the licensure exam. Colleges of nursing base their curriculum on what is on the exam.
Similarly, in graduate nursing programs, the pass rate on the specialty certification exams, which are required to apply for a specialty license (for example, as a family nurse practitioner)the curriculum must cover areas on the exam.

Perhaps teachers need residency programs before they fully graduate: a year or two of teaching in special ed, general ed, inner city, suburban, social problem ridden, etc., with professors' supervision, and in school supervision. During this time, student-residents could have an and academic/practice based research project. This would add to the body of research in education, and orient future teachers toward integrating research into their teaching practice. Easy for me to dream up stuff for other professionals to do!

I interacted with some pretty lousy teachers, who had no interest in learning any thing new. I also interacted with some good teachers.

The states decide how teachers are certified.

Most states (NJ included) require the Praxis tests.

The Praxis I is sometimes used to get into Colleges of Education, it is a 10th grade equivalency test.

The Praxis II is a short (120 question) exam with pedagogical questions, and if 5-8 or k-12, you must pass it in your content area.

[SharonF]

I firmly agree about the need for teachers to have more practical, hands-on training.

A serious problem is flat or reduced funding for teacher salaries in many places. I live in a no-union ("right to work") state. Teachers cannot organize and cannot use collective bargaining. The state legislature sets all teacher salaries for all public schools in the state. School boards and school districts can only provide a pay "supplement."

Before the recession (2008) and a big partisan shift in our state legislature (2010 and 2012), this state was 26th in teacher salaries. Nothing to brag about but not terrible. Now we're 47th in the nation in teacher pay. Public school teachers haven't had a raise in four years. And they won't get a pay raise this year, either. The state is also increasing class sizes, eliminating teacher aides and eliminating bonuses for teachers with master's degrees.

How can we create a residency program or require more practical education for teachers when we aren't paying teachers enough to cover the cost of their student loans? How can we attract more flexible and innovative minds if we don't respect teachers enough to pay them more than plumbers? (Nothing wrong with being a plumber...just using it for comparison.)

Some claim our tea party legislators prefer private school or home school, not public school. Critics claim the legislature's "starve the beast" approach to public schools is the tea party's way of dismantling public schools. I'm starting to wonder if that might be true. In any case, it appears we are doing little to invest in better teacher training OR to attract enough really great minds to the profession.

[healthy11]

Sharon stated, "In any case, it appears we are doing little to invest in better teacher training OR to attract enough really great minds to the profession."

I'm by no means an expert, but with my son having been enrolled in a variety of public, parochial, and private schools from K-12, I have to say that his needs were better met OUTSIDE of the public school system, and we live in a district with "Blue Ribbon Award Winning" public schools!

My personal belief is that if teachers WERE better trained, then maybe parents wouldn't be so disheartened with public schools. (Goodness knows people who make an investment in sending their kids to college see tuition continuing to escalate, but it's painfully apparent from future teachers like Bros that the "education of educators" is lacking.) If people weren't so frustrated with the public school systems, perhaps they would be more willing to pay higher taxes and raise teacher salaries, so more of the "great minds" would enter into and stay in the profession.

What my son experienced was a physical public school setting that offered nicer facilities and "tools" (ie, new computers every 3 years, which we weren't even getting at the tech company I worked for) but it was a bureaucracy with an attitude of "teach to the middle" and anyone whose needs fall outside of that "comfort range" should just "shut up and suck it up."

In contrast, my son's experience at the parochial school, where teachers are paid much less than public school instructors, was one where they seemed to be in the profession for the love of children. They may not have had the "latest and greatest" electronic devices to use, or even an air conditioned building, but they genuinely seemed to care about imparting knowledge to all students as best they could. They were more willing to make accommodations for my son than the public school, and didn't have to wade through as much bureaucracy to do it.

The private gifted school my son attended had "the best of both worlds," with fantastic facilities as well as small class sizes and wonderful teachers who took an interest in every student, but the tuition was very high, and I concede it would be cost-prohibitive for many families. Still, there are lessons that can be learned about how to engage students in their quest for knowledge, not squelch it, as happens in many public schools where kids are just "numbers" instead of "names."

[dihicks6]

More reasons why I have definitely decided to homeschool.....