On Monday, New York state started taking education re form seriously: The state Board of Regents took up the topic of teacher preparation — with new Education Com missioner David Steiner as the star witness.
With a standing-room-only crowd of onlookers, Steiner methodically and passionately made a compelling case for upending how education schools prepare teachers for the classroom — an issue once taboo.
He presented a bold set of fresh ideas, complete with brutal honesty about the failures of the past — and a dash of humor and diplomacy. His five-part plan:
Rigorous performance-based assessments for certification: Steiner wants rigorous exams so that teachers will know
their subjects.
Redesigning education schools: Steiner says education schools should focus far more on clinical practice in the classroom — and professors at these colleges should be focused far less on getting published in what the Oxford-educated Steiner termed “obscure journals.”
Report cards for education schools: He proposes state “profiles” for each institution that certifies teachers — reports that would use data on the performance of their students on the new certification exams, and on how well their graduates affect “student learning and achievement” in the classroom.
Alternative routes to certification: Steiner backs a “clinically-based teacher certification” model. That is, you wouldn’t have to go to an education school to become a teacher, but (perhaps) to a cultural institution, research center or nonprofit group. He’s presumably thinking of possible alternative-route organizations like Teach for America or The New Teacher Project.
Merit pay for teachers in hard-to-serve areas: Steiner argued for differential (or merit) pay for teachers who agree to teach in high-need schools in hard-to-fill areas such as science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Teachers would get an extra $4,000 in the first year, rising to $8,000 in the fifth year, paid initially out of federal Race to the Top dollars and then out of state and district funds. The state also would create a new “pathway” for individuals with advanced degrees in STEM disciplines to teach in classrooms without going through the normal certification process.
Many details need to be worked out, as Steiner and the Regents carefully noted, but this is a heck of a start.
Steiner has been studying the topic of teacher preparation since 2002, when he began researching schools of education. His work has highlighted the incoherence of some education-school programs, the bias in others — and the gaps in almost all.
After an initial firestorm of criticism, he started winning converts. In a landmark 2006 study, Arthur Levine declared: “Current teacher education programs are largely ill equipped to prepare current and future teachers for new realities.”
Making that conclusion even more powerful was the fact that Levine is a legendary former head of Columbia Teachers College — one of the top schools critiqued in Steiner’s work.
As dean of education at Hunter College, Steiner developed an innovative teacher-preparation program called Teacher U, working collaboratively with Uncommon Schools, KIPP and Achievement First — charter-school networks with an impressive track record of serving urban children. Teacher U’s success was a prime reason he was tapped to serve as education commissioner.
And he’s the right man — and, with the federal Race to the Top competition pushing New York (and other states) to rethink educational practices, it’s the right time. The Regents should take Steiner’s plan and run with it.
Thomas W. Carroll is presi dent of the Foundation for Edu cation Reform & Accountability.