TEACHER PREPARATION: BEST PRACTICES

CENTER X AT UCLA
A good example of an exemplar “traditional” teacher education program can be found at UCLA’s Center X. The program is designed to attract academically able students and deeply prepare them in a two-year program that readies them to radically improve urban schooling for California's racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse children. In this post-baccalaureate program, students with majors in their content area take a full load of courses and student teaching in the first year. The second year is the Residency, in which each program participant is paid to work as a teaching assistant in a school while completing coursework and a teaching portfolio. An ongoing assessment of the program reveals that only 10 percent of graduates leave teaching after three years, compared to over 50 percent in most other urban schools.

PROJECT PROMISE AT COLORADO STATE UNIVERISTY
Project Promise, a 10-month alternative certification program, has been in place for almost a decade and has assembled a fair amount of evaluation data. Paccione, McWhorter, and Richburg (2000) found that 87 percent of the graduates entered teaching positions, compared to 60 percent from a traditional 4-year teacher education program. In addition, more graduates of the alternative route completed the teacher education program, and more remained in teaching than graduates of a traditional undergraduate teacher preparation program. Administrators rate these alternative route teachers significantly higher than other prepared teachers — especially in terms of classroom management, teaching diverse students, delivering teaching strategies and using technology.

ACADEMY FOR URBAN SCHOOL LEADERSHIP
AUSL, founded in January 2001 by prominent business, civic, and education leaders, has recognized the importance of preparing prospective teachers more deeply for the challenges they will face. While just getting off the ground, the Academy offers a $30,000 salary and a tuition-free Master in Arts of Teaching to talented recent college graduates and mid-career professionals who commit to teach in the city schools. The recruits are expected to complete a twelve-month leadership development and teacher preparation program that includes graduate-level coursework and a ten-month teaching residency. The residency is designed to prepare teachers for working in low-performing schools by placing them under the guidance of accomplished and experienced mentors in high-functioning schools serving disadvantaged students. A new study shows that students of AUSL graduates outperform similar students taught by other new teachers in the Chicago schools.