Training tomorrow's teachers
AFT members working in colleges and universities take on the
challenge of boosting supply and supporting new teachers

If every graduate of the country's 1,300 schools and colleges of education went into teaching, we wouldn't be facing an acute teacher shortage. Setting aside serious discussions about the quality of teacher preparation in some of those institutions, there are plenty of students who are studying to become teachers.

But the picture changes after graduation: For a variety of reasons, about one-third of those teacher-ed grads never even enter the profession. Worse yet, more than 20 percent of those who do take teaching jobs will leave in the first three years (with even greater levels of attrition in urban schools). So right there, nearly half of the students who are on a teaching track will be derailed before they reach a classroom or shortly thereafter.

Given these trends, it seems clear that our problems with teacher supply and demand have as much to do with retention as with recruitment. "At the very least, this is an inefficient use of both human and material resources," author and educator John Merrow notes in his new book, Choosing Excellence. "To call for greater recruitment efforts in the face of overwhelming evidence that the system cannot keep people seems odd, to say the least." Part of the blame for this inefficiency, Merrow and others say, rests with teacher-training institutions.

If sheer quantity were the problem, colleges and universities would have a tough time significantly boosting enrollments in teacher-training programs, at least in the short term. Improving quality, although a big challenge, is something that can be done, given the proper resources, support and attention. And that connects directly to the issue of retention: New teachers leave the profession for a variety of reasons, but inadequate preparation and lack of ongoing support rank high on the list.

Higher education institutions around the country--and the AFT members who work there--are tackling the issue of improving the quality of teacher-training programs in several ways. In fact, some promising progress is being made in community colleges--institutions not traditionally associated with teacher preparation. To overlook the role that community colleges play in teacher education is to miss a key fact: Huge numbers of future teachers--up to 40 percent by some estimates--will take most of their math and science courses at the community college level. By the time these students transfer to four-year institutions, their focus will have turned more toward methods and theory.

"This indicates the importance of having strong math and science courses," says AFT member Deborah Zopf, who coordinates pre-education programs at Henry Ford Community College (HFCC) in Dearborn, Mich. This is no small matter at HFCC, which sends hundreds of its pre-education students on to pursue education degrees at the University of Michigan at Dearborn and other four-year institutions in the area.

Although math and science classes at HFCC don't focus directly on teaching methods, Zopf and her colleagues work hard to make sure their classes get away from straight lectures and model the sort of teaching strategies they believe can help future teachers reach as many students as possible.

"Our math classes are very, very different from what students took in high school and might have found distasteful," with the result that they ended up hating math, Zopf says. This has meant "rediscovering math" for some students.

Vicky Graham is a poster child for the HFCC approach. A former HFCC student who recently graduated first in her class at the University of Michigan at Dearborn, Graham "had nightmares about taking college math courses because I did so badly in it in junior high and high school," she recalls. But she came to enjoy the subject so much that she changed her focus from English to math and science; Graham should have no problem finding a teaching position.

Likewise with Karen Beahon, an HFCC grad now in her second year as a fifth-grade teacher in Dearborn Heights. The community college's hands-on math classes really "help you understand what students are going through," says Beahon, a member of the Crestwood Federation of Teachers. When faced with a child who's struggling with a concept, Beahon says, "I still go back to what I learned at HFCC."

The link between training and supply

Boosting the academic preparation of teachers is a major recommendation of the AFT's K-16 teacher education task force report, "Building a Profession: Strengthening Teacher Preparation and Induction." The task force doesn't look to discard the traditional approach to teacher preparation, as some of the system's more radical critics would do. Rather, it calls for better links between schools of education and the districts they serve.

The report makes clear the connection between training and teacher supply and demand: "In our view, the best way to bring an adequate supply of well-trained teachers into the classroom is not by avoiding collegiate teacher education, but rather by strengthening it--by bringing more professional control, higher quality, greater resources, and much more coherence to the way higher education screens and prepares teacher candidates today."

No matter whether they attend community colleges and then transfer to four-year institutions or complete all their studies there, teacher candidates need high-quality practical training. (The AFT report calls for a fifth year of study devoted to observing and working in schools under the guidance of an experienced mentor.)

At many institutions, education faculty are working closely with cooperating teachers to ensure that the experienced teachers who will serve as mentors get the training, compensation and time to work effectively with pre-service teachers.

"Usually it is assumed that a good, experienced teacher will make an effective cooperating teacher," says AFT member Edward J. McNamara, a university clinical supervisor at Kean University in New Jersey. "More often than not, this is true."

But teachers are not always comfortable in that role, he says. So, for the past two years, Kean has offered a four-day institute for cooperating teachers that centers on their needs. In the process, it solidifies the collaborative nature of the relationship among student teacher, mentor and university supervisor and "fine-tunes personal and professional communication skills critical in working effectively with these young people," he says.

Unions are instituting or establishing similar programs in New York and Illinois. In New York, the United University Professions (UUP) of the State University of New York, working with the New York State United Teachers, has started a pilot program at five campuses, says William Scheuerman, UUP president. It enriches the clinical component of teacher training by focusing on how supervising teachers are selected and trained.

In Illinois, Karen Peterson, a University Professionals of Illinois/AFT member, has put together a new certificate program at Governors State University with local teacher unions providing training. Teachers who started the training program in January will be certified to supervise by fall 2001.

Meanwhile, a number of colleges and universities, usually in conjunction with local districts as well as teacher unions, are also boosting their efforts to provide ongoing support to teachers after they start their new careers.

In California, for example, the Santa Cruz New Teacher Project--a joint effort between the district and the University of California at Santa Cruz--uses 40 "advisors" to provide individual support and instruction for new teachers during their first two years. The program has had a dramatic effect on retention rates: Less than 10 percent of the teachers who go through it leave the profession.

"It's an excellent program," says George Martinez, president of the Greater Santa Cruz Federation of Teachers. "We've had great success with it." In fact, the program is so successful that it is the model for California's statewide beginning teacher support program.

AFT K-12 locals and members are involved in similar induction programs in cooperation with higher education institutions in other locations, including Albuquerque, Chicago, Cincinnati and San Antonio.

Taken together, these various programs help young teachers begin--and one hopes, continue--their careers with confidence and a support system; and they give veteran teachers and teacher educators a chance to broaden their experiences and share their knowledge.

--Daniel Gursky

American Federation of Teachers, AFL•CIO - 555 New Jersey Avenue, NW - Washington, DC 20001