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Virtual Library - General References
Alternative
Teacher Education: A Review of Selected Literature
Linda Brannan, Robert
Reichardt
Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE)
2002
“The purpose of this literature review is to summarize recent research
and other information about the practice of alternative teacher
education. Literature was gathered for this review through a three
stage
process. First, a broad search was conducted of the ERIC database to
identify the universe of information related to this subject… Finally,
the bibliographies of the articles, reports, and other literature
identified through this process were reviewed to identify other
references. The body of literature identified through this process was
narrowed to include only the most informative documents published
during the last five years.”
Service
Learning as Scholarship in Teacher Education
Alice M. Buchanan,
Shelia C. Baldwin, Mary E. Rudisill
Educational Researcher (Vol. 31, No. 5)
June/July 2002
"This article describes how two teacher education service-learning
programs illustrate alternative interpretations of scholarship. A
tutoring-mentoring program in a teaching oriented masters institution
and a motor skill development program in a land grant
doctoral-research
institution are described relative to how each illustrates forms of
scholarship as interpreted by Boyer (1990). We discuss how these forms
of scholarship--the scholarship of discovery, integration, teaching,
and application--relate to stated institutional mission and evaluation
practices. Service-learning experiences for preservice teachers can
have the multiple benefits of promoting an ethic of service and social
responsibility, demonstrating excellence in teacher education, and
exemplifying scholarly endeavors."
The
Discourse of Reform in Teacher Education: Extending the Dialogue
Marilyn
Cochran-Smith, Mary Kim Fries
Educational Researcher (Vol. 31, No. 6)
August/September 2002
"In response to Fenstermacher's and Furlong's commentaries,
Cochran-Smith and Fries suggest three additional points to extend the
dialogue about the reform of teacher education. They discuss the
potential value of debates that marshal evidence for a particular
policy
position, the importance of open discussion about the ideologies that
underlie different positions, and necessary cautions about the
increasing role of the federal government in educational policy and
practice."
Sticks,
stones, and ideology: The discourse of reform in teacher education
Marilyn
Cochran-Smith, Mary Kim Fries
Educational Researcher ( Vol. 30, No. 8)
November 2001
“Many highly politicized debates about reforming teacher education are
embedded within two larger national agendas: the agenda to
professionalize teaching and teacher education, which is linked to the
K–12 standards movement, and the movement to deregulate teacher
preparation, which aims to dismantle teacher education institutions and
break up the monopoly of the profession. In this article, the authors
analyze how these two agendas are publicly constructed, critiqued, and
debated, drawing on public documents from each side and using the
language and arguments of the advocates themselves. The authors argue
that, despite very different agendas, the discourse of both
deregulation and professionalization revolves rhetorically around the
establishment of three interrelated warrants, which legitimize certain
policies and undermine others. Taken together, what Cochran-Smith and
Fries label ‘the evidentiary warrant,’ ‘the political warrant,’ and
‘the accountability warrant,’ are intended by advocates of competing
agendas to add up to “common sense” about how to improve the quality of
the nation’s teachers. The authors conclude that in order to understand
the politics of teacher education and the complexities of competing
reform agendas, their underlying ideals, ideologies, and values must be
debated along with and in relation to ‘the evidence’ about teacher
quality.”
Resources,
Instruction, and Research
David K. Cohen,
Stephen W. Raudenbush, Deborah Loewenberg Ball
Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy
University of Washington
December 2000
“Education policymakers have long believed that conventional resources,
i.e., books, bricks, class size, and teacher qualifications, directly
affect student learning and achievement. This working paper builds on
more recent research and argues that learning is affected by how
resources are used in instruction, not by their mere presence or
absence. If use is central to resource effects, research on the effects
of resources should be broadened to include the chief influences on
use,
including teachers’ and students’ knowledge, skill, and will, and
features of teachers’ and learners’ environments, including school
leadership, academic norms, and institutional structures. We discuss
how
resource use is influenced by the management of certain key problems of
instruction, including coordination, incentives to use resources, and
management of instructional environments. Having framed the issues in a
way that places use by teachers and learners at the center of inquiry,
we then discuss research designs that would be appropriate to identify
resource effects.”
Quality
Counts 2003: The Teacher Gap
(free registration
required)
Education Week
January 9, 2003
"Quality Counts 2003 focuses on the teacher gap, its possible causes,
and its potential solutions. Our survey of the 50 states and the
District of Columbia found that states and districts are taking steps
to
recruit and retain competent teachers, but those efforts generally are
not aimed at finding teachers for high poverty, high minority, and low
achieving schools. . . . Research clearly shows the need to find
qualified teachers for high need schools. For this year's Quality
Counts
report, Richard M. Ingersoll, an associate professor of education and
sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, analyzed public school
students' access to qualified teachers, based on the 1999-2000 Schools
and Staffing Survey. That federal database, known as SASS, includes a
statistically representative sample of teachers across the United
States."
Report
Touts Community Colleges As Source of Teachers
(free registration required)
Education Week
October 30, 2002
"The nation's 1,100 community colleges have the potential to provide
more than 25 percent of the teachers needed to staff classrooms over
the
next decade, but to date remain an overlooked resource, a report
released last week contends."
The
Union Imprint
(free registration
required)
Education Week
October-November 2002
"In this three part series, Education Week examines the ways the
teachers' unions work to shape education policy."
Getting Data,
Using Data: How Do
We Do It?
ENC Focus
Eisenhower National
Clearinghouse
2003
"The idea of data driven decision making brings many questions to
teachers' and school administrators' minds. How and where can I obtain
meaningful data? How can I make some sense of the information once I
get
it? How can I interpret data to other key people in my school or
district? This issue of ENC Focus will get you started. It begins
with an article about the Uses and Abuses of Data by Nancy Love, author
of Using Data/Getting Results. Also included are excerpts from that
work
as well as an interview with Love about her process and purpose in
writing it (see An Interview with Nancy Love: Building a Professional
Learning Community). Examples of real data and how to interpret them
are
provided by Craig Jerald, author of Dispelling the Myth Revisited
('Cooking with Data' to Reduce Achievement Gaps). The issue also
includes examples of action research classroom teachers
collecting
data from their own practice to make decisions to benefit their
students (Getting Comfortable with Data, Creating a New Course
Based on
Student Needs, Turning Skeptics into Supporters). "
The Question of the Student in
Educational Reform.
David P. Ericson,
Frederick S. Ellett, Jr.
Education Policy Analysis Archives (Vol. 10, No. 31)
July 2, 2002
"In pursuing the goals of educational reform over the past several
decades, educational policy makers have focused on teachers,
administrators, and school structures as keys to higher educational
achievement. As the would-be beneficiaries of reform, students,
and their interaction with the educational system, have been almost
entirely overlooked in the pursuit of educational excellence. Yet, as
we
argue, students are as causally central as educators in bringing about
higher educational achievement. In what follows, we examine rational
student interaction with the educational system and show why a large
number of students have incentives to undercut the intent of the
reforms. These are incentives created by our development of an
educationally-based, meritocratic social and economic system. No
one, apparently, is asking what exactly is in the reforms from the
point
of view of quite rational, if sometimes irresponsible, student
self-interest. Indeed, the educationally-based, meritocratic
social and economic system may be actually forming student preferences
guaranteed to result in educational mediocrity rather than excellence.
Finally, we comment upon the meaning of ‘educational excellence’ and
show why the educational reformers' understanding of the purpose of
public education--to compete in the global economic system--can only
fail to capture it. In doing so, we point to the kinds of
educational structures and policies that create multiple pathways to
competent adulthood that do have a chance of bringing about the
reformers' stated goal of excellence in the educational system.
But these are structures and policies that challenge the entire
conceptual framework of the current educational reform movement.”
School
Accountability: An Assessment by the Koret Task Force on K 12 Education
Williamson M. Evers,
Herbert J. Walberg, Editors
Hoover Institution
2002
"This book brings together a group of expert authors from a wide range
of perspectives - history, economics, political science,
and psychology - to reveal what is known about
accountability, what still needs to be learned, what should be done
right now, and what should be avoided in devising accountability
systems. The authors dispel common myths about accountability and show
that it indeed offers the best hope for improving our public schools.
Their contributions include a history behind the ongoing conflict
between educators and policymakers over testing and accountability, a
review of various combinations of accountability schemes that work best
together and those that do not, and an analysis of the costs of
accountability, which shows that it is one of the most cost effective
of
all school reforms. They offer a comparison of accountability in three
states with relatively strong systems - California,
Texas, and Florida - revealing how it works in
practice. And they examine the specific features needed in effective
accountability systems, providing examples of consumer friendly
reporting of results from actual accountability systems."
The Possibility of Reform:
Micropolitics in Higher Education.
Susan Haag, Mary
Lee Smith
Education Policy Analysis Archives (Vol. 10, No. 21)
April 16, 2002
“The purpose of this case study was to examine the restructuring of an
institution of higher education's teacher preparation program and to
assess the possibility for systemic reform. Although teacher education
represents a vital link in not only the educational system but in
curricular reform, the increased expectations for educational reform
made this institution unavoidably more political. These
conditions
meant that the study of micropolitics was critical to understanding how
organizations change or fail to initiate change…. While literature
regarding effective schools touts strong leadership and shared values,
accomplishing school reform continues to remain problematic. Despite
the widespread interest and infusion of resources for restructuring
teacher education, the history of educational reform shows that
initiatives have often failed. The study began with the
micropolitical hypothesis that the educational system comprises diverse
constituencies with differing ideologies regarding schooling…. Data
reveal fundamental differences in the images of five constituencies in
these areas: curriculum, teachers, pupils, and teacher education and
support the micropolitical assertion that systemic reform is
unobtainable.”
Tear
Down This Wall: The Case for a Radical Overhaul of Teacher Certification
Frederick Hess
Progressive Policy Institute: 21st Century School Project
November 2001
“This paper proposes a third way: a ‘competitive certification’ model
that breaks the monopoly education schools hold on the supply of
teachers with the aim of expanding the pool of potential teachers while
also addressing the issue of quality. The goal is to increase the pool
of qualified applicants and at the same time increase the competition
among providers of preparation and ongoing professional development of
schools.”
Interpret
With Caution: The First State Title II Reports on the Quality of
Teacher Preparation
Sandra Huang, Yun Yi, Kati Haycock
Education Trust
June 2002
“The Education Trust analyzed the state reported data as they appear on
the U.S. Department of Education’s
Title II website. In addition, every attempt was made to explore state
websites and/or contact state officials to clarify our understanding of
their reports. By examining these key sections of the state reports, we
sought to discover whether states meet the requirements—and the
spirit—of the law.”
Teacher
Quality
Lance T. Izumi,
Williamson M. Evers, Editors
Hoover Institution
2002
"This collection of research brought to you by the Pacific Research
Institute and the Hoover Institution will do much to help schools, and
parents, answer the question of what works. The contributors, some of
the brightest
minds in education research, have studied the most pressing questions
about teacher quality and practices. They have reviewed thousands of
education studies, closely examined state test scores, and explored
education theories of the past thirty years in order to assess where we
are, and where we ought to be."
The Limits of Sanctions in
Low Performing Schools: A Study of Maryland and Kentucky Schools on
Probation
Heinrich Mintrop
Education Policy
Analysis Archives (Vol. 11, No. 3)
January 15, 2003
"The article reports on a study of 11 schools that were labeled as low
performing by the state accountability systems of Maryland and
Kentucky,
nationally known for complex performance based assessments. The study
shows that putting schools on probation only weakly motivated teachers
because the assessments were largely perceived as unfair, invalid, and
unrealistic. Administrators responded with control strategies that
rigidified organizations, forestalling dialog and learning processes.
Instructional reform developed only feebly. On the other hand, some
schools remedied inefficiencies and were able to 'harvest the low
hanging fruit.' The schools struggled with severe problems of teacher
commitment."
No Child Left
Behind: A Desktop Reference
Office of Elementary
and Secondary Education
U.S. Department of Education
October 2002
"For each program of NCLB, this 180 page manual discusses purposes, how
the program works, key requirements, how to achieve quality, how
performance is measured, and key activities and responsibilities for
state education departments."
Alternative
Teacher Education: Trends and Implications in Policies and Practices
Robert Reichardt
Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE)
2002
"This report draws upon the ideas and knowledge available in existing
research on alternative certification and education systems. Linda
Brannan has synthesized much of that knowledge in the companion report,
Alternative Teacher Education: A Review of Selected Literature [see
above]. This report also draws upon the knowledge, perspectives, and
practices of administrators in five districts. Data were gathered
through 30-minute, semi-structured telephone interviews of officials
knowledgeable of their districts’ practices in the use of alternatively
educated teachers."
Qualifications
of the Public School Teacher Workforce: Prevalence of Out-of-Field
Teaching 1987-88 to 1999-2000
Marilyn McMillen
Seastrom, Kerry J. Gruber
Office of Educational
Research and Improvement
U.S. Department of
Education, NCES
2002
“Interest in how well teachers' qualifications match their teaching
assignments has intensified among educational policymakers and
researchers. Research has called attention to the phenomenon of
'out-of-field' teaching, in which teachers are assigned to teach
subjects and grade levels for which they have little training. Data
from
the NCES Schools and Staffing Survey provide a unique opportunity to
examine trends in out-of-field teaching over a 13-year period (1987-88
through 1999-2000), as well as across subjects and grade levels. The
study includes four approaches to measuring out-of-field teaching and
focuses on two definitions of out-of-field teaching: teachers without a
major and certification in-field and teachers without an in-field
major, minor or certification.”
The
Vision Magazine
Volume 1, Number 2, 2002
SERVE, the Regional
Educational Laboratory for the Southeast
"In this expanded
issue of The Vision, we examine emerging thinking about assessment
systems that leads to improved instructional practices, and we discuss
the challenges educators and policymakers face when designing such
systems. Accountability systems establish responsibility in an effort
to raise educators' and students' performance to achieve a higher
standard of quality. Designing systems that encourage improvement
rather than just punish failure and that promote achieving higher
standards rather than just higher test scores is a daunting and
challenging task."
The Accreditation
Game
Sandra Vergari and
Frederick M. Hess
Education Next (Vol. 2, No. 3)
Fall 2002
“In a nation marked by disagreement about what teachers need to know,
what they ought to be able to do, and what dispositions they should
have, the challenges of devising a sound accreditation system are
mighty. Compared with the National Council of Teacher Education's
(NCATE) standards, the Teacher Education Accreditation Council's (TEAC)
lack of direction risks
appearing relativistic. Yet, at the very least, NCATE should not be
granted de facto status as the accrediting body for teacher education.
Whether TEAC or another alternative will prove more effective is not
clear. What is clear, however, is that the goal of a quality teacher in
every classroom is more likely to be met in a system where various
models of quality control are tried, tested, and compared than in a
world where NCATE’s constituent organizations are effectively crafting
the standards for the pedagogy, curriculum, and practice of teacher
education.”
The Politics of
School-Based Management: Understanding the Process of Devolving
Authority in Urban School Districts
Elaine M. Walker
Education Policy Analysis Archives (Vol. 10, No. 33)
August 4, 2002
“Since the late 1970s the problem of urban education has been cast as
partially a problem of governance and authority structures. This
focus mirrors a larger preoccupation by educational reformers with
democratizing the decision-making process in public schools, a
preoccupation that is evident not only in this country but also many
nations throughout the world. Borrowing from the private sector, the
underlying assumption behind decentralization is that educational
improvement is only possible if those closest to the point at which
decisions are enacted become the architects of these decisions.
Thus, school-based management (SBM) or participatory decision-making is
viewed
as a means to formally incorporate the voices of parents, teachers and
the community in the management of their schools. This paper discusses
the findings of a recently conducted study on school-based management
in thirty of New Jersey's poorest districts (referred to as the Abbott
Districts). These districts have begun a process of complex
reform after the state's Supreme Court ruled that the state had failed
to constitutionally provide a thorough and efficient education for its
poorest students by the absence of parity funding. Populated by
primarily black and Hispanic students, and representing most of the
larger urban communities in the state, students in these districts
exhibit performance levels significantly below that of the state
average. The results of the study indicate that (i) genuine
autonomy has been usurped by an intensification in state power and
authority; (ii) state elites have provided little opportunity for
districts and SBM teams to build capacity; (iii) the level of
democratization or opening-up of decision making to local community
members has been minimal as the teams become teacher dominated; and
(iv) in the absence of clear guidelines from the state, conflict over
the appropriate role of SBM members, principals, central office staff
and local school boards has emerged. The paper on the basis of these
findings explores some policy options that need to be considered both
at the state and local levels as school communities move toward more
decentralized governance structures.”
Teacher
Certification Reconsidered: Stumbling for Quality
Kate Walsh
The Abell Foundation/Education Next
2001
“…the academic research attempting to link teacher certification with
student achievement is astonishingly deficient. To reach this
conclusion, we reviewed every published study or paper—along with many
unpublished dissertations—cited by prominent national advocates of
teacher certification. We found roughly 150 studies, going back 50
years, which explored or purported to explore the relationship between
teacher preparation and student achievement. To our knowledge, there
has
been no comparable effort by analysts to drill systematically down
through these layers of evidence in order to determine what value lies
at the core.”
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