$5 million Carnegie grant goes to improving teacher education, effectiveness

BY LISA TREI

Stanford and six other colleges have been selected by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to reform the way teachers are trained for the nation's schools.

The $5 million Carnegie grant to Stanford will be matched with funds raised by the university, said Jeffrey Wachtel, the project's coordinator and senior assistant to the president.

Carnegie's "Teachers for a New Era" initiative will include expanded teacher training for secondary schools and the establishment of a program for elementary teachers. It will provide additional opportunities for undergraduates to work in area schools that share professional development relationships with the university, and offer enhanced mentoring for recent graduates. Ultimately, the goal is for findings from the five-year initiative to influence public policy makers on quality of education issues nationwide.

"Carnegie's goal is to change the expectations of teacher education," said Linda Darling-Hammond, a leading force behind Stanford's project. "They want to show, 'This is what teacher education can become.'"

Darling-Hammond, the Charles E. Ducommun Professor in the School of Education, explained such changes were initially accomplished for medical training in this country with the opening of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1893, a development that for the first time introduced rigid entrance requirements, a scientific curriculum and laboratory research for students. Until then, American medical training was chaotic and regarded as a trade. The same level of professional standards, training and support demanded of medical doctors is now required for American schoolteachers in the 21st century, Darling-Hammond said.

Other institutions invited by Carnegie to join the initiative include Boston College, Florida A&M University, the University of Connecticut, the University of Texas-El Paso, the University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Bank Street College of Education in New York City, California State University-Northridge, Michigan State University and the University of Virginia were chosen last year to receive the grant.

Although each school has latitude in devising reforms, three design principles, established by Carnegie, will be followed, Darling-Hammond said. These include establishing:

• A culture of respect for evidence that includes looking at graduates' effectiveness by documenting their students' achievements;
• An effective engagement by the school of education with the arts and sciences;
• A conception of teaching as a clinical practice that encompasses a period of residency following graduation to ensure responsibility for graduates' performance.

Unlike the Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP), a master's program based in the School of Education, the Carnegie project will be located in the president's office to reinforce its broad scope encompassing both the humanities and sciences. "This is a group effort," said Deborah Stipek, dean of the School of Education. "I'm impressed by how much people want to be involved from across campus."

In addition to education Professors Darling-Hammond, Pamela Grossman and Guadalupe Valdes, English Professor Andrea Lunsford and electrical engineering Professor Brad Osgood will join the project's steering committee, Wachtel said.

"This approach is in keeping with the new trend in multidisciplinary education that is being supported campuswide to solve big, important problems," he explained.

Osgood, who holds a courtesy appointment in education, said the Carnegie initiative may help revive aspects of the defunct Science, Math and Engineering Core originally designed for non-science majors. "It was a natural set of courses for potential teachers to take," Osgood said.

During the last five years, STEP has been redesigned to place stronger emphasis on student learning and professional development. The changes have led to a more "evidence-based and data-informed process" for making decisions, Darling-Hammond said. The program enrolls about 70 students a year. "We don't train large numbers but we tend to have more leaders," she said. "After three years, many of our graduates are heading departments and working with others to start new schools."

According to the university's grant submission to Carnegie, the changes at STEP have laid the groundwork for plans that will be pursued through "Teachers for a New Era." They include:

• Extending STEP, a one-year program for training secondary teachers, into the undergraduate curriculum, and creating a program for training elementary teachers that emphasizes deeper disciplinary knowledge;
• Expanding the number of high schools designated as "professional development schools" so that all prospective teachers receive clinical training in sites designed to support teacher learning;
• Developing a system of teacher performance assessments in conjunction with a consortium of California universities;
• Developing mentoring and assessment supports for STEP graduates;
• Expanding a research program that documents the learning and teaching of program graduates, and compiles and assesses information about the outcomes of teacher education strategies.

Stipek said the Carnegie grant will enable Stanford to evaluate STEP and assess how effective it is in preparing teachers for their profession. "It's really pushing us to think creatively how to structure and judge our program based on real information," she said. "This is a wonderful opportunity to expand teacher preparation."

• School of Education