Trustees for Better Teachers: Reforming Teacher Education
Launched in 2000, Trustees for Better Teachers is a multi-year initiative aimed at improving teacher education in the United States through thoughtful involvement of trustees. Most of America’s teachers are trained in our schools of education. As trustees and stewards of your institutions, you are ideally placed to take a critical look at the teacher training programs at your schools and be a positive force for reform.
Dr. Candace de Russy, former chairman of the Academic Affairs Committee of the State University of New York Board of Trustees, serves as coordinator for Trustees for Better Teachers. Candace is an accomplished and outspoken trustee who has been fighting for academic quality and accountability at SUNY. She is an expert on teacher education and is the co-author of “SUNY's Teacher Preparation Reforms: A Work in Progress,” which appeared in ACTA's publication, Educating Teachers: The Best Minds Speak Out.
ACTA is committed to mobilizing concerned trustees, alumni, and education leaders on behalf of academic excellence and accountability, and the free exchange of ideas at our colleges and universities. We have had remarkable success working with trustees across the country to promote high academic standards in the liberal arts. We hope to build on that success with the Trustees for Better Teachers initiative.
The Need: Well-Prepared Teachers
"For over 80 years, teacher education in America has been in the grip of an immutable dogma, responsible for endless educational nonsense. That dogma may be summed up in the phrase: Anything But Knowledge. Schools are about many things, teacher-educators say … self-actualization, following one’s joy, social adjustment, or multicultural sensitivity—but the one thing they are not about is knowledge."— Heather Mac Donald, Fellow, Manhattan Institute
Ever since the National Commission on Excellence in Education released the 1983 report A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform, there has been a growing awareness in the United States that our K-12 educational system is not performing well.
On today’s standardized tests of basic knowledge and skills, American students compare poorly with those of other industrialized nations—and even some non-industrial ones—ranking close to last out of 21 countries. The average SAT score has fallen by more than 55 points since 1960. Nearly one-third of entering college students need to take a remedial course in math or English. And employers report that they have to spend more and more resources on teaching newly-hired workers how to do simple tasks involving reading, writing, or arithmetic.
There is no single culprit for our educational weaknesses, but the American Council of Trustees and Alumni—as well as many experts in the field of education—have identified a primary cause: American teachers do not receive good preparation in the teacher training programs they take in college. It is common knowledge at colleges and universities across the country that the students, courses, and faculty of education programs do not measure up to their counterparts in the sciences and liberal arts.
The reason for this is not hard to find. Education schools are not just weak or inadequate; they are based on fundamentally wrong premises. With rare exceptions, they assume that subject matter is much less important than method. Prospective teachers are taught how to teach rather than what to teach. Consequently, vast numbers of teachers are unqualified to teach the subjects to which they are assigned.
Moreover, there is a great deal of controversy over the soundness and efficacy of those “teaching methods.” Many college departments of education teach that it is more valuable for children to learn “how to learn” or “how to look something up” than to master specific facts. That it is less important for students to get the right answer than to go about getting it in a personal and interesting way. That knowledge should be “constructed” by the student rather than imparted by the teacher. And the curriculum at many education schools emphasizes using classrooms as a means of social engineering, promoting ideologies rather than knowledge and learning.
Trustees Are the Answer
Within this nation’s immediate grasp is a public school system staffed by qualified teachers who model in their lives and work the intellect and character we wish for our children. … Trustees have the power to challenge the culture of low expectations. Trustees bring the aspirations of a wider community to the governance if higher education. … [T]hey bring the right of every citizen to expect results from every school in America."— Michael Poliakoff, former president, National Council on Teacher Quality
The education school dean and faculty are not apt to see the error of their ways and unilaterally institute changes. And while some college presidents are aware of the deficiencies of their education schools, few of them want to fight another battle. A strong dose of sound, independent judgment is necessary—something that must come from you as trustees.
College and university trustees are in a unique position to work for reform in teacher training programs. You are individuals of achievement in a variety of business and professional fields. You care deeply about the future of our country and the education of our children. And, most importantly, you have the authority and the independence to review the teacher preparation program within your institution and to insist on reform.
Mobilizing trustees is something ACTA knows how to do.
Trustees for Better Teachers
To become active, you need to know: how serious the problem is, what your appropriate role is in correcting the problem, how to evaluate your school’s programs, what kinds of teacher preparation programs would be best, and what specific steps your board can take to review and improve your programs. Through Trustees for Better Teachers, ACTA can provide you with the information and tools you need.
Publications
With the assistance of a distinguished group of advisors, ACTA has published a collection of selected articles and book chapters on contemporary American teacher education entitled Educating Teachers:The Best Minds Speak Out. Some of the selections give vivid examples of the follies in education schools; some dissect the theoretical underpinnings of the reigning ideas in our education schools; others outline solutions—the principles and practices of a true liberal-arts-based approach to the preparation of teachers.
A second booklet, Teachers Who Can: How Informed Trustees Can Ensure Teacher Quality, provides practical, step-by-step assistance to trustees who are interested in improving their teacher education programs. It provides a brief summary of the critical problems in teacher education, outlines the principles and criteria for an excellent teacher preparation program, gives examples of real-life programs that work in practice, provides models for boards to adapt to their own situation, and outlines an action plan for trustees.
As part of it's Essays in Perspective series, ACTA published the executive summary for "Educating School Teachers" by Arthur Levine, director of the Education School Project. The report outlines the problems of most teacher education programs and also provides specific examples of programs that work.
Please go to ACTA's Publications link if you wish to purchase an ACTA publication.
Meetings and Conferences
Even with sufficient information, trustees often find it difficult to move their board, the president, and faculty in the direction of serious evaluation and reform. Colleges and universities are quite unlike businesses and other organizations in their ability to insulate themselves from pressures to change. ACTA can work directly with you to assist in the process of reviewing and improving your institution’s teacher education programs
ACTA has conducted regional conferences in Massachusetts, Colorado and Missouri under the auspices of the governor or a state higher education official. Each meeting was tailored to the teacher education programs in the state and included presentations by experts on the weaknesses in current programs as well as models for more effective ones. The meetings covered the authority trustees have to review and propose reforms and the tactics they can employ to overcome resistance to change.
If you would like to hold a meeting in your state, or participate in a national conference, please let us know.
Institutional Assessments and Consultations
Upon request, ACTA is also available to assist boards of individual colleges and universities. That assistance could include an in-depth assessment of your school’s teacher education program, specific recommendations for improvements, and advice on how to implement those improvements.
ACTA believes that to be successful, teachers must receive an education that is content-based, grounded in the liberal arts, and focused on knowledge and learning. We encourage you to play an active role in evaluating and requiring improvements in the teacher preparation programs at your institutions. As trustees for better teachers, you can help ensure that America’s aspiring teachers will be qualified to begin their classroom careers and able to make significant gains in student learning.