Summit Highlights: PowerPoint Presentations
Teacher Education Community: The Center X Experiment
Frankie Gelbwachs provides a look at the history, mission and design of UCLA’s innovative Center X teacher education program, and the progress of its efforts to (1) attract more racially, culturally and linguistically diverse cohorts of prospective teachers and (2) ensure that every graduate has the commitment, capacity and resilience needed to survive and thrive in the challenging environment of high-poverty urban schools.
Nurturing Relationships and Early Field Experiences: The Keys to Recruiting New Math and Special Education Teachers for Urban Schools
San Jose State University professor Amy Strage shares information about undergraduate learning opportunities for students planning to become K-8 teachers, particularly those interested in working in high-need schools and/or subject areas. Research by Strage and her colleagues suggests that early field-experience programs contribute significantly to prospective teachers’ mastery of course content, their understanding of how to teach that content to elementary and middle school students, and their enthusiasm for pursuing a teaching career.
Are Teachers Prepared for Racially Changing Schools?
Genevieve Seigel-Hawley, a UCLA doctoral student in urban schooling and editor of the Civil Rights Project’s online The Integration Report, reviews the findings and policy implications of research on the extent to which the nation’s teachers have the background, training and resources to deal with the steadily increasing racial/ethnic diversity of the school-age population – in urban, suburban and rural districts alike.
Retaining Great Teachers: What We Know and What We Need to Learn
The Center for Teaching Quality’s Barnett Berry provides a useful summary of the current knowledge base on the working conditions, learning opportunities and incentives that matter most in terms of retaining teachers. At the top of the list: good principals and great colleagues, a strong infrastructure of support for novice teachers, and a higher level of freedom and flexibility for more-experienced teachers.
In Pursuit of Ethnically Diverse, Highly Qualified Teachers in Math, Science, English and Special Education
Donna Glassman-Sommer and Marvin Lopez, who lead new-teacher development efforts for central California’s Tulare County Office of Education, review the key features of successful recruitment strategies. Their presentation concludes with a variety of sample outreach, communication and marketing materials – ranging from brochures and flyers to newspaper and online advertisements.
Urban Teacher Residencies: Teacher Preparation for the 21st Century
Andra Brill shares information on the design and development of the Boettcher Teachers Program, a collaborative effort of the University of Denver, two school districts, the Boettcher Foundation and the Public Education and Business Coalition. The program has had notable success in recruiting and preparing high school math/science teachers and bilingual elementary school teachers.
Other collaborative teacher-preparation models featured at the summit include the Urban Teaching Academy and other programs sponsored by Montclair State University’s Center for Pedagogy; the Des Moines Public Schools’ Teacher Quality Partnership Project; the Milwaukee Partnership Academy and other programs sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Education; the Denver Public Schools/Metropolitan State College of Denver Urban Teacher Partnership; the University of Colorado at Denver School of Education’s Legacy Project; and the Texas Regional Collaboratives for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching.
Learning Dialogue: Assessment and Communication in the Information Age
Denver Public Schools instructional specialist Rob Beam and the Council on 21st Century Learning’s Stevan Kalmon focus on the increasingly urgent need to move away from factory-model schooling, and take greater advantage of new technologies, new insights into the nature of teaching and learning, and “informational” as opposed to “industrial” assessment practices.
Rethinking Science Education
Bob Goodman, 2006 New Jersey Teacher of the Year, makes the case for a top-to-bottom rethinking of high-school science education, and provides a look at the progress of reform and improvement efforts at Bergen County Technical High School, where he chairs the science department, manages the pre-engineering program and teaches physics and environmental science.
Teachers for a Competitive Tomorrow
Steve Sniegoski, teacher-quality program officer for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education, provides an overview of a new competitive-grant program designed to help school districts expand the pipeline of well-qualified K-12 math and science teachers.
Summit Highlights: Other Useful Reports & Resources
Missed Opportunities: How We Keep High-Quality Teachers Out of Urban Classrooms
In this session, Joan Schunck, project director for The New Teacher Project (TNTP), provided an overview of her organization’s research on one of the largest and least understood barriers to improving teaching and learning in urban schools: district hiring-process inefficiencies and delays, coupled with seniority staffing rules in teachers union contracts. To find out more about TNTP’s findings and recommendations on this critical issue, click here.
Supporting New Teachers: Evaluating Teacher Induction Models
Georgia State University’s Lin Black provided an overview of a state-of-the-art professional-growth model developed by the GSU Induction Project in conjunction with the National Commission on Teaching Quality and America’s Future. To download a copy of the model, click here. Another panelist, Martha Bleecker of Mathematica Policy Research Inc., gave an update on a five-year federally funded study of the impact of teacher induction programs, the findings of which will be issued in fall 2008. For additional information about the study, click here.
Why Quality Urban Teachers Matter to the Business Community
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Jan Magill reviewed several major structural changes identified as critical to improving teaching quality in A Joint Platform for Education Reform, issued in February 2007 by the Chamber and the Center for American Progress. The two organizations also collaborated on the recently published Leaders and Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Effectiveness, which includes useful information on what states are doing to enlarge the size, quality and capacity of their teaching workforce. To view the report, click here.
Building a Pipeline of Quality Urban Teachers
Segun Eubanks of the National Education Association (NEA) and John Mitchell of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) provided highlights of their organizations’ recent reports on new and emerging strategies for expanding the supply of qualified, talented teachers in urban school districts. To see the NEA report, click here. To view the AFT report, click here.
Compensation Strategies to Retain Teachers in Urban Schools
This session featured a discussion among several key players in the joint district/union effort to develop and implement Denver’s innovative Professional Compensation System for Teachers (ProComp). For information about ProComp, click here. To see the findings of a newly published study of ProComp by University of Colorado assistant professor Edward Wiley, click here.