Like so much else in the world of teacher preparation, progress at readying new teachers for vastly different K-12 content expectations can probably best be described by one adjective: inconsistent.
There are those faculty members committed to revising courses and syllabuses to reflect the Common Core State Standards, those still sorting through what the standards mean for training, and those who resist the call to orient preparation around them.
Even for the early adopters, the standards pose some vexing questions: What does 鈥渁lignment"鈥攁 vague concept to begin with鈥攎ean for educator preparation? How will the common core change the teaching of both content and 鈥渕ethods鈥� classes in which prospective teachers learn pedagogical techniques? Does student-teaching, generally cited by teacher-candidates as the most important element in preparation, offer enough opportunities to practice teaching to the standards?
Add to those questions the decentralized structure of higher education, and the scope of the challenge becomes apparent.
鈥淭he control that faculty members have over their content makes it harder to get everyone to agree to move in the same direction,鈥� said Rick Melmer, a former dean of the University of South Dakota鈥檚 education school. 鈥淭here are more filters that change has to go through.鈥�
Volatile Mix
Teacher education has been under many pressures of late, including calls to improve student-teaching, classroom-management coursework, instruction, and program outcomes.
The addition of the common core into that mix promises to be especially volatile, because it stands to reshape teacher education curricula to a greater degree than the other efforts. And that fuels concerns about academic freedom, as well as long-standing debates about whether programs鈥� main duty is to prepare teachers capable of carrying out specific, state-approved courses of study鈥攐r, as others argue, to prepare teachers to be knowledgeable about competing theories and to be critical actors in education policy.
Compare the comments of two education deans on the standards.
鈥淲e can teach awareness of the common core, but prepping kids to teach it moves into job-specific training, which is unrelated to teaching and learning in an academic sense,鈥� said Timothy Slekar, the dean of the education school at Edgewood College, a private Catholic liberal arts institution in Madison, Wis. 鈥淚f we stop doing that as teacher-educators, we鈥檙e no longer a profession.鈥�
The dean of the education school at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., Candice McQueen, offers a different perspective.
When districts are demanding talent well versed in the common core, 鈥渋t鈥檚 frankly unethical to put out teachers that don鈥檛 know the standards,鈥� Ms. McQueen said. 鈥淵es, we鈥檙e teaching candidates theory, and to be thoughtful about understanding policy, but honestly, our job is to prepare the very best teachers that go out into the field. We do hold that very practical philosophy.鈥�
Frequently, faculty members within an institution are divided on the standards, as Nancy S. Grasmick, formerly a long-serving state schools superintendent in Maryland, recently discovered.
Ms. Grasmick, under whose watch the standards were adopted in Maryland in 2010, was brought on as a distinguished presidential scholar at Towson University, near Baltimore, to help the college鈥檚 education programs transition to the common core. (Towson produces the most teachers of any Maryland college.) In the 2012-13 academic year, Ms. Grasmick organized a yearlong series of meetings introducing faculty members to the new expectations and the major shifts in practice.
Obliquely, she said, those forums illuminated faculty members鈥� conflicting views on the initiative.
鈥淲hen people stood up and said, 鈥楾his is an attempt by big business to take over education,鈥� I knew we had challenges ahead,鈥� Ms. Grasmick said.
Trump Card
States approve which preparation programs can recommend candidates for a teaching certificate, so in theory, they hold the trump card where teacher preparation is concerned. Some, Colorado and Florida among them, have passed laws or promulgated rules explicitly requiring educator preparation to address their state鈥檚 K-12 academic-content standards, according to the Denver-based Education Commission of the States.
In practice, such requirements are difficult to enforce, especially if the state audits programs only every few years. The diffuse nature of the nation鈥檚 1,400 schools of education in terms of program size, institutional type, and delivery methods also complicates matters.
When attitudes toward the standards vary so much, it鈥檚 no surprise that colleges are taking different tacks in approaching the standards. In some education schools, the strongest push for the standards comes from teacher-educators who believe they offer an opportunity to improve teaching.
Patricia Swanson, an associate professor of elementary education at San Jose State University in California, is one such leader. She believes the common-core mathematics standards reinforce a deeper approach to learning that teacher education programs value but that has been at odds with the pressure in districts to cover test material.
鈥淚n some ways, common core takes us back to the way we think math ought to be taught,鈥� said Ms. Swanson, who teaches both preservice teachers and a professional-development course for practicing teachers.
Her revamped methods courses focus on the set of eight standards for mathematical practice鈥攕uch as making sense of problems and modeling with mathematics鈥攖hat undergird the content expectations in the common core.
Although she covered many of those practices before, she now teaches them more explicitly, with assignments requiring candidates to analyze a task they might perform with students and how it relates to one or more of the practices.
For a lesson on functions and mathematical modeling, for instance, Ms. Swanson has aspiring teachers use windup toys to measure the distance traveled over time, and then to represent those journeys in different ways鈥攁s a series of ratios, points on a graph, and ultimately, as an equation.
鈥淲e are trying to have kids see math as something we can use to describe our world,鈥� Ms. Swanson said.
There are cases in which educators themselves need more time simply practicing the mathematics and learning different ways of conceiving of it, she added. Fractions, which under the common core are introduced in 3rd grade, tops that list.
It鈥檚 a point reiterated by Katherine K. Merseth, a senior lecturer and the director of teacher education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who believes the shifts will require more programs to improve their content preparation.
鈥淜ids can learn to invert and multiply in order to divide fractions, but then they look at the teacher and ask, 鈥榃hy鈥�?鈥� Ms. Merseth said. 鈥淲e have to make sure that our students and our graduates can answer exactly that question.鈥�
Achieving Consistency
Trying to get all institutions to share a consistent level of fluency with the standards is one of Ms. McQueen鈥檚 goals in Tennessee. Lipscomb University received a grant through the state鈥檚 federal Race to the Top award to craft resources for teacher-preparation programs in the state, such as video exemplars of common-core-aligned teaching.
Early feedback from statewide training institutes for faculty indicated that colleges needed more specific help. So Lipscomb, with assistance from the Washington-based Aspen Institute, has produced a self-assessment meant to guide faculty members as they rework their courses.
Some of the ideas Tennessee institutions are working on include using the standards as a required course reading; requiring teacher-candidates鈥� 鈥渃apstone projects鈥� to align to the standards; and incorporating text-dependent writing, a core feature of the English/language arts expectations, into the portfolios candidates must submit.
Lipscomb faculty last fall submitted revised course syllabi with their self-assessments.
鈥淣ow, we鈥檙e going back to areas they didn鈥檛 feel as confident in and trying to give some individual attention by pairing them up with faculty who were strong in those areas,鈥� Ms. McQueen said.
Some progress is dependent on factors outside a college鈥檚 control. Tennessee, like other states, this year is administering exams aligned to the state鈥檚 old standards. That means prospective educators currently doing their student-teaching aren鈥檛 necessarily seeing the common core enacted in classrooms in the way it should be once the new exams are in place, Ms. McQueen said.
Debate about the standards within colleges seems to be especially fierce with respect to the ELA expectations鈥� focus on nonfiction and grade-level reading.
In fact, some of those standards鈥� most vocal critics are teacher-educators, such as Nancy Carlsson-Paige, a professor at Lesley University, in Cambridge, Mass., and Joanne Yatvin, formerly an adjunct professor at Portland State University in Oregon.
Mr. Slekar of Edgewood College, though a critic of the common core, acknowledges that districts are likely to seek new teachers with knowledge of the standards. That puts his institution in an uncomfortable situation.
While Edgewood faculty members will make sure teacher-candidates are 鈥渇ully aware鈥� of the common core鈥檚 ELA expectations, they won鈥檛 be trained specifically on how to implement its principles, he said.
鈥淎ll three of my literacy faculty said they wouldn鈥檛 advocate it as the curricula of choice because it would violate their academic integrity,鈥� Mr. Slekar said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the same way I wouldn鈥檛 endorse direct instruction and I wouldn鈥檛 endorse whole language,鈥� he said, referring to two reading methodologies.
Ripples in a Pond
Ms. Grasmick said she鈥檚 changed gears to working with the most receptive faculty members at Towson University. Many are participating in work groups to address main common-core themes, such as the changing nature of assessment.
Another lever, Ms. Grasmick said, has been building up support among the districts that take many of the colleges鈥� students. Towson University is beginning a partnership with the 108,000-student Baltimore County public schools to create an entirely new program, with lots of student-teaching, that supplies teachers with all the competencies the district wants to see.
鈥淚t gives us an opportunity to shape the next generation of classroom teachers and make sure it鈥檚 competitive with what鈥檚 going on with the teaching of common core,鈥� said S. Dallas Dance, the Baltimore County superintendent.
The ultimate goal is for the district to offer Towson graduates who complete the program 鈥渁dvanced contracts,鈥� in which they could be guaranteed a teaching slot in the spring. And that鈥檚 a powerful lever for change, Ms. Grasmick said, now that education schools are being pressed by accreditors, and potentially by the U.S. Department of Education, to show that their graduates can find jobs.
Towson鈥檚 gradual approach to the standards may be less dramatic than a mandate, but in the end, perhaps more effective.
鈥淚 think it鈥檚 unrealistic to think we鈥檙e going to have 100 percent of faculty on board, or even 90 percent,鈥� Ms. Grasmick said. 鈥淏ut I think if we can get a core group, it鈥檚 going to make a difference.鈥�
