Meeting of the Commission
Friday, January 13, 2006
10:00 A.M. – 4:00 P.M.
Recital Room, Richards Hall
Dixon University Center, Harrisburg
Present at Meeting
| Caroline Allen |
James Fogarty |
Ivory Nelson |
Donald Kockler for C. Tartaglione |
| John Augustine |
Peter Garland |
Robert Palestini |
Cylthera Hornung for D. Surra |
| Cynthia Azari |
James Gearity |
Donna Piekarski |
Elaine Frombach for M. Fabrizi |
| Robert Bartos |
David Gilbert |
Harris Sokoloff |
Candy Lerner for T. Kirsch |
| Terry Blue |
Mark Holman |
Stinson Stroup |
|
| Jane Bray |
Rita Jones |
Cathy Trombetta |
Robert Feir |
| Nancy Bunt |
Richard Kneedler |
Elizabeth Useem |
Stephen Pavlak |
| Heather D’Angelo |
Alan Lesgold |
|
Sarah Coon |
| Carolyn Dumaresq |
C. Kent McGuire |
|
Michelle Tarlecki |
Opening and Introductions
Dr. Kneedler began the meeting at 10:20 a.m. After greeting everyone,
he introduced Deputy Secretary of State Michael Aumiller. Deputy
Secretary Aumiller administered the oath of office to several members
of the Commission (Allen, Azari, Stroup). Dr. Fogarty moved the approval
of the November 11, 2005 minutes, Dr. Hornung seconded, and they
were adopted unanimously.
The discussion shifted to the revised schedule. The revised schedule
suggests that the meeting for goal 2 also discuss the survey results
from the surveys of deans and superintendents (February 10) and goals
3 and 4 be combined into one meeting (March 10). The original May
19 meeting was scheduled as a teleconference and is now suggested
to be a face-to-face meeting because of the cancellation of the December
meeting. A teleconference meeting is now suggested for June 9 for
the approval of the report. It should not last very long. Closer
to the actual meeting date the Commission will discuss whether a
face-to-face meeting is needed.
An issue has been raised about the April 14 meeting because it is
Good Friday. Two dates have been proposed as possible alternatives – April
11 and April 20. April 11 is the last day of the AERA conference
and would not be good for many of the Commissioners. April 20 seemed
to be the best of the three dates by a show of hands, but an email
poll will determine what the final meeting date will be. There were
no other objections to the revised schedule, so it was adopted as
the official schedule of the Commission.
Breakout Groups – Goal 1
Before breaking into small groups, Dr. Feir provided some background
information to the Commissioners. The objective of the small groups
was to look at several areas of the original work plan concerned
with the effectiveness of novice teachers. He asked the groups to
come up with goals, solutions, and improvements for the current system
in relation to the chosen topic. The groups were given one hour to
come up with ideas and then reported back to the Commission as a
whole. The Commission was broken into four groups and each had its
own topic, facilitator and recorder.
The groups were picked with the idea in mind that not every group
member would see eye-to-eye. These groups are an opportunity for
dialogue between K-12 and higher education institutions. Dr. Feir
illustrated the idea that there will not be a general consensus on
every issue by reading some results from a survey that was distributed
to education deans or department chairs and superintendents in Pennsylvania
school districts.
- New teachers are excellent:
- Deans: 90% agree
- Administration: 20% agree
- New teachers are good:
- Deans: 5% agree
- Administration: 59% agree
- Help students master content standards – new teachers are
very well prepared:
- 2002 Ohio survey
- Faculty: 52% agree
- Administration: 18% agree
- 2005 Pennsylvania survey
- Deans: 85% agree
- Administration: 14% agree
- Use test results to assess student needs – new teachers
are very well prepared:
- 2002 Ohio survey
- Faculty: 39% agree
- Administration: 9% agree
- 2005 Pennsylvania survey
- Deans: 59% agree
- Administrators: 5% agree
- Clinical experiences:
- 93% of universities state that their students are in the
classroom by the second year
- 67% of universities state that their students serve in five
or more classrooms
- University faculty spending more time in K-12 classrooms:
- Deans: 54% state faculty would be better if they spent
more time in K-12 classrooms.
- Deans: 81% state it counts toward promotion and tenure.
- Administrators: 92% think that it would be better if faculty
spent more time in K-12 classrooms.
- Administrators: 95% state they would provide opportunities
for university faculty to enter their classrooms.
Dr. Dumaresq suggested surveying recent graduates about their preparation
and early teaching experiences and offered to help. Commission staff
will work with PSEA and PaFT to do this.
Following are highlights of the small group reports.
Group 1
Topic – “Aligning Preservice Teacher Education with
PK-12 Standards and Roles of Teacher Education and Arts & Sciences
Faculty”
Facilitator: Dr. Nancy Bunt
Recorder: Dr. James Gearity
- Standards ↔ Academic Disciplines
- Disciplinary Faculty aware of/responsive to standards?
- Teacher prep should be all-campus responsibility
- Elementary: Where do the students learn? Where do the teachers
learn the standards that they will be teaching?
- Standards should be referenced in higher education.
- College grads should at least be able to meet PK-12 standards.
May require curricular review – core curriculum?
- When is more attention to disciplinary content needed? When is
it appropriate?
- Pedagogy after 4 years or integrated into content preparation
and clinical experience?
- Practical needs:
- Money to pay for college
- Costs of school districts to recruit and pay for teachers
- Our battle cry should be “All Teachers Should Be Well-Educated!”
Group 2
Topic - “Preparing Novice Teachers to Use Research, Multiple
Assessments, and Data to Assess Student Knowledge and Improve Teaching”
Facilitator: Dr. Alan Lesgold
Recorder: Dr. Betsey Useem
- Neither group (PK-12 or higher education) has figured it out;
goal is improved student learning
- How practices and technologies
- Both old and new
- Younger teachers more comfortable with this although
not necessarily more skilled
- Cultural shift – your intuition doesn’t
count as much
- Formative and summative – numeric literacy
- Big issue – how to re-teach
- New interventions
- Induction and the need for continuous reinforcement and training
- Districts very different in how they are doing assessments – maybe
a mistake to ¬train people to do this – difference between
teaching ¬about the activity vs. doing the activity – don’t
teach them one way
- Contextual challenges – communicating with different stakeholders,
including community
- Tension – practical difficulties in improving the student
teaching experience – individual preferences of students
- In past, students took course of a psychometrician or graduate
student of a psychometrician - is that still the best way?
- Teachers now inundated with data – formative assessment – faculty
need to know this
- Teachers need to understand PSSA data, their own tests and how
to use them – need to teach them national norm information
- Must understand why students get something wrong when looking
at diagnostic tests
- Must learn assessment in clinical setting – some of this
must happen in induction – what do you need to know up front?
And what needs to be systematically addressed in first year of
teaching?
- Focus is now on formative assessments – a good look for
teacher collegial work and the use of interventions
At 12:15 p.m., the meeting recessed for lunch.
To keep the meeting on schedule, Dr. Kneedler spoke during the lunch
break about two topics on the agenda for the afternoon session.
Levine Meeting
On December 22, he and Dr. Feir traveled to New York City to meet
with Dr. Arthur Levine, President of Teachers College of Columbia
University. Dr. Levine has recently completed a study on the training
of school teachers and administrators in the United States that will
be published in the coming months. The study uncovered proof of what
is already known and several misconceptions about the teaching profession.
Dr. Levine identified four very successful programs at very different
schools – Emporia State, a master’s level state institution
in Kansas, Alverno College, a Roman Catholic college in Wisconsin,
the University of Virginia, a state-supported doctoral extensive
university with a five-year teaching degree, and Stanford University,
a very selective private doctoral extensive university that offers
a master’s degree in education. These programs are at the top
of the class because academics and field experiences are tied together.
The prospective teachers at these universities are being placed for
clinical experiences in schools that have been identified as great
schools. The goal of placing the students in these schools is to
prevent them from learning methods that are unsuccessful.
A key to making changes to teacher education programs is to view
teacher education more as professional training than undergraduate
liberal arts education.
The quality of research about how to educate teachers is poor, and
thus there is no universally accepted view of what works. Dr. Levine
is concerned that political interest is turning toward issues that
involve taking care of people such as health care and Social Security,
and education is losing its priority status.
A basic theory of economics is that when a manufacturer wants the
quality of a product to rise, the quantity of a product should decrease.
In the teaching profession, no one wants either to be sacrificed,
and they want both quantity and quality to rise. If both are to increase,
a new breed of people are needed to become teachers. In order to
find this new breed of teachers alternative teaching programs are
beginning to grow. The reason – no one knows what works. An
example of variety is in New Mexico, where community colleges prepare
more teachers than universities.
Dr. Levine’s study included a small percentage of teachers
nationwide. He found that the only positive factor that affected
PK-12 students’ learning in the classroom was longevity. Professional
experience and professional development trump teacher preparation.
Teacher effectiveness is higher when there is less attrition and
turnover.
Dr. Levine believes that the stereotypes and misconceptions about
teaching need to be changed. People are choosing not to teach because
there is a lack of prestige in teaching. The more intelligent students
are staying away from teaching. If a program, similar to the Rhodes
Scholar program, was created for teachers, it might attract more
qualified candidates.
Dr. Levine’s conclusion regarding educational quality was
that outcomes matters more than processes or inputs.
Demographic Factors
Dr. Kneedler presented two maps to the Commission. Both maps were
broken down by county. The first one represented the percentage change
in population from 1990 to 2000. From the map a shift can be seen.
More people are moving to counties located on the Maryland and New
Jersey borders. The counties in Western Pennsylvania show a decrease
in population with the exception of Butler County. The shift shows
that more people are moving out of the cities into suburbs. The counties
with the largest gains were Pike and Monroe. There is due to an influx
of commuters from New York City.
The second map showed the change in public school enrollment from
1997-98 – 2004-05. This map shows a similar trend to the census
map. Counties with an increase in population tended to have an increase
in school enrollment. Except for two counties near Pittsburgh, all
of the increases in enrollment occurred near the borders of Maryland
and New Jersey. Again Pike and Monroe had the largest increases because
of the people coming from New York City and surrounding areas.
Dr. Kneedler suggested that the Commission’s final report
will need to be written in a way that is cognizant of these trends
and of their effects on the different regions that comprise the Commonwealth.
There was discussion among the Commissioners on how these changes
affect education in Pennsylvania’s regions.
Breakout Groups Continued
After lunch, Groups 3 and 4 reported.
Group 3
Topic – “The Appropriate Mix of Academic Coursework
and Field Experience”
Facilitator: Donald Kockler
Recorder: Dr. James Fogarty
- Some teachers still have no early experiences actually teaching,
although many have observation.
- Structuring field experiences – more than observation.
- Connecting instructors of pedagogy and field experiences of students – proper
supervision.
- Standards of “frequent and early” field experience – what
structure is needed in addition to this?
- PDE standards for student teaching need to be developed more
clearly (Some are there).
- More content required for elementary and SE teachers – harder
to define what and how – Specialized? Rounded?
- Assessment of student teacher’s content knowledge should
include cooperating teacher – feedback
- Role of professional development schools – study councils – universities
in existing induction.
Discussion:
The discussion focused on PDE’s Form 430 (for evaluating student
teachers). Several Commissioners suggested that PK-12 cooperating
teachers be involved in or given responsibility to sign off on the
430. Others suggested using it to identify individual areas requiring
improvement through induction and continuing professional education.
Group 4
Topic – “Faculty Experience in PK-12 and Implications
for Performance Reviews and Tenure”
Facilitator: Dr. Peter Garland
Recorder: Dr. Clythera S. Hornung
- Act 48 for teacher education faculty K-12 experience could be
one way teacher education faculty can earn Act 48
- Note: What % of teacher education faculty are teacher certified?
- Can there be separate promotion and tenure rules for teacher
education?
- SSHE has many content faculty who are teacher certified.
- At least one higher education institution gives Act 48 hours
for new course development.
- Can/should higher education require that teacher educators be
certified?
- Bulk of teacher educators want to be in the PK-12 classroom.
- There is a lack of appreciation (in higher education) for the
work of “real school.”
- Involve disciplinary faculty in supervision of student teachers
- Encourage PK-12 partnerships with higher education to yield
experience for higher education faculty – constant dialogue
with “real schools” about issues that relate to preparation
of teachers.
- PA should mandate number of hours of field experience for teacher
education → “real school” experience for higher
education faculty
- Is higher education involved in school district professional
development plan?
- Teacher Induction could/should be a consortium process
- New teacher induction is an ideal place for higher education
and PK-12 to collaborate
- There were lab schools at all SSHE institutions – now
only Shippensburg has such a school.
TQE Presentation
Chris Baldrige, Teacher Quality Enhancement (TQE) Coordinator for
the Harrisburg Area, spoke to the Commission about the TQE program,
along with Commissioners Bartos, Gilbert, and Holman. TQE is a grant
that is run under the PA Academy at the Dixon University Center.
Under this grant there are four partnerships – Harrisburg,
Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown - that allow for PK-12 schools
and universities to partner for the sake of professional development.
The partnerships that exist between the PK-12 schools and the universities
offer many benefits to both, but they are not without their problems.
Because of the geographic distance between some universities and
the schools, a common location is needed. Also a PK-12 teacher’s
schedule and a university faculty member’s schedule are very
different and a block of time that both are free is hard to find.
A concern with many student teaching programs in Pennsylvania is
that they do not start when the school year starts. If a person is
student teaching in the fall, he or she will enter the classroom
a few weeks after the school year has begun in the PK-12 school.
If that person were to enter the classroom when the academic year
began, he or she would be able to see how the teacher establishes
the class dynamics. TQE has started getting student teachers into
the classroom at the beginning of the year rather than later. Teachers
are much more willing to accept student teachers early when they
are coming from a partner university.
The costs of TQE lay more in the amount of the university faculty’s
time rather than a monetary cost. When the State System started it,
the cost was between $30,000 and $100,000. The school district is
not being charged anything and the university cost is only the faculty’s
time.
In Santa Cruz a new teaching center was created for teacher induction.
It was estimated that the cost of teacher induction for one teacher
is $5,000. This cost is absorbed by the school district because it
is cheaper than a constant turnover of teachers. Because there is
nothing comparable in Pennsylvania, TQE, through the universities,
is providing new teachers with the help they need in certain areas
through study groups. Although the universities cannot help with
every part of induction, this helps the new teachers in areas where
they may be lacking. These experiences provide a learning environment
not only for the teachers, but also for the faculty members too.
In Harrisburg, study groups for the basic subjects such as reading
and math have turned into study groups for almost any subject.
Professional development schools are professionally rewarding to
setup, but hard to sustain. A way of enticing people to sustain these
schools may be to have them be for research purposes. Money is also
another issue for sustaining these schools. A suggestion was made
that if professional development schools are going to work, money
should be set aside for them.
National Accreditation Agencies
Included in the folders was an 11 page document on accreditation
by the national organizations: NCATE and TEAC. Within the state of
Pennsylvania, the institutions of higher education are not required
to be accredited by either, but 18 universities in Pennsylvania are
NCATE accredited, including the 14 PASSHE universities. As a dean
of one of those teaching education programs, Dr. Jane Bray spoke
of the first hand experience that she has had with an NCATE review
and its requirements. As a member of TEAC, Dr. Alan Lesgold spoke
about that organization.
If a university wants to become NCATE accredited, a review separate
from the PDE review is completed. Many universities schedule the
reviews for the same time period. These reviews tend to be costly,
time consuming and cumbersome. Currently NCATE reviews a university
every seven years, which was extended from the previous five year
period.
NCATE reviews the university’s teacher education program for
several things. There are six major standards, but under each there
is a wide array of things that NCATE reviews. Disposition is something
that was recently added to an NCATE review. Possibly the most important
part of NCATE’s review is accountability for the impact that
a university is having on students in the PK-12 classroom rather
than merely what the university students are doing in student teaching.
In the past NCATE was the only national accrediting organization. In recent
years an organization known as TEAC (Teacher Education Accreditation Council)
was created by universities that were not satisfied with NCATE.
TEAC’s standards also are focused on the performance of teacher
education candidates, but its accreditation process is more like
an audit – checking to make sure that a university does what
it tells the public it is doing. In the past year TEAC accredited
13 universities across the nation. Within Pennsylvania, six universities
are dues paying members, but none is accredited yet.
Some states require an NCATE or TEAC accreditation instead of an
individual state review. These requirements keep both organizations
very busy. If Pennsylvania teaching universities were required to
do something similar or have both PDE and NCATE or TEAC accredit
them, it could become costly. One reason that not many schools complete
two reviews is because of the costs involved. An issue was raised
about the ability of a smaller school to pay for an NCATE or TEAC
review, if accreditation were to be required. An alternative approach
would be to allow the university to choose between a PDE review or
becoming nationally accredited by NCATE or TEAC.
There were no public comments.
Dr. Feir said he would distribute his Executive Director’s
report via email.
Dr. Kneedler noted that the Commission’s staff would now begin
identifying issues that might become the subjects for Commission
recommendations in its final report. He adjourned the meeting at
3:50 p.m.
