Plans to improve teacher prep

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has unveiled a new framework for improving U.S. teacher preparation programs, aiming to introduce a higher degree of accountability that will reward programs that produce the most highly qualified teachers, and rehabilitate or eliminate the programs with the poorest results.

The plan comes in response to the concern that teacher preparation is highly uneven across the various programs throughout the country. Duncan cited a survey in which 62 percent of teachers reported that they felt unprepared for their job.

"Imagine what our country would do if 62 percent of our doctors felt unprepared to practice medicine," he said. "You would have a revolution in our medical schools."

The Education Department has plenty of other data points to illustrate the shortfall. Just half of teacher candidates receive supervised clinical training. In high-poverty schools, fewer than 15 percent of teachers were in the top third of college graduates. Subjects such as science, math and engineering especially suffer from a shortage of qualified teachers.

The result, Duncan said, is an environment of high uncertainty for all participants--from the college student who borrows money to attend an education program to parents, school districts and the students themselves.

A 'common-sense' approach to education programs

Under the framework Duncan outlined, programs would be held to a new standard of accountability based on a "feedback loop" that generates data on how well individual programs' graduates have performed in the classroom. No such system exists today, Duncan said.

The idea would be that programs with the highest-performing graduates would be expanded and furnished with additional resources. Middling programs would be identified for reform, while the lowest-performing programs would enter a restructuring phase, partially supported by the federal government, or eliminated entirely if they failed to improve over time.

"Now, this all sounds like common sense. But it is not even close to how America's teacher preparation system operates today," Duncan said. "And let me be the first to say that the federal government has absolutely been part of the problem. For far too long, we have been a compliance machine, rather than an engine of innovation."

He acknowledged that the federal government's annual survey of teacher preparation programs fails to collect a picture of how well those programs succeed as measured by graduate outcomes. States, in turn, largely fail to hold their programs to a meaningful standard of accountability. Of the more than 1,400 teacher preparation programs, states identified just 37 as underperforming in 2010.

"This would be laughable, if the results weren't so tragic," Duncan said. "People rightly expect that teacher certification or licensure should be based on a demonstration of effectiveness."

The plan he outlined would seek to ease the bureaucratic burden on states for evaluating their teacher preparation programs, while shifting the focus to outcomes, rather than compliance. Additionally, the government would look to align scholarship funding for students with the best-performing programs.

A broad coalition of support among educators

Duncan rolled out his plan at an event in Washington, D.C., where he was joined by leaders of a diverse group of stakeholders in the education sector, including the heads of the National Education Association, the leading teachers' union, and Teach for America, a leading alternative teacher program focused on improving education for low-income students.

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel, who has roundly opposed various proposals appearing in legislatures across the country to slash education budgets, praised Duncan for shifting the focus back to ways to strengthen the teacher workforce.

"Today, for me, this is a good day," Van Roekel said. "Frankly, it's kind of a nice change of tone to talk about building the profession instead of tearing it down."

The Education Department has also enlisted the support of a bipartisan array of state and city superintendents, elected officials and prominent academic figures.

"The starting point for this conversation and for this unusual coalition is simple: supply and demand," Duncan said. "The math here is straightforward. In the next decade, 1.6 million teachers will retire, and 1.6 million new teachers will take their place. This reality presents a true challenge and an amazing opportunity."