Student-Teaching Found to Suffer From Poor Supervision

By Stephen Sawchuk

Ed Week

The student-teaching experience offered by many traditional schools of education couples poor supervision with a lack of rigorous selection of effective mentor-teachers, a controversial report issued today concludes.

Released by the Washington-based National Council on Teacher Quality, the report examines student-teaching practices in 134 education schools, or about one-tenth of such programs nationwide. All but a quarter of the programs reviewed earned a “weak” or “poor” rating.

Among other conclusions, the council contends that colleges are preparing too many elementary-level teachers—perhaps more than double the number needed nationally—thereby taxing both the higher education institution and its partner school districts’ ability to provide high-quality field experiences.

“Ed. schools are begging schools to take these student-teachers,” said Kate Walsh, the president of the NCTQ. “It tells you a lot about the state of teacher education that we find it acceptable that student-teachers don’t have to meet a measure of quality, nor do the people who train them.”

Some teacher educators criticized the review for its methodology, charging that the council put too much weight on document reviews to the exclusion of other factors, and did not make public the scoring system used to rate the institutions.

“I actually think for the most part the standards are appropriate,” said Ada Beth Culter, the dean of the College of Education and Human Services at Montclair State University, in New Jersey. “But they have made a determination that a majority of the institutions are weak and poor, and we don’t know how they arrive at that. They are not transparent about the ratings, and I think that’s irresponsible.”

Such complaints echo the controversy surrounding a larger project under way by the NCTQ and U.S. News and World Report to issue ratings to all 1,400 schools of education, a project that has already generated considerable opposition from university-based programs. ("Teacher-Quality Group to Revamp Education School Review," Feb. 23, 2011.)

Methodology

The review comes as teacher educators and policymakers alike push the idea of remaking student-teaching in the mold of a medical residency—much lengthier and more rigorous. ("New Vigor Propelling Training," Dec. 1, 2010.)

Although a long-standing feature of university-based preparation, student-teaching is perhaps the aspect about which the least is known, according to at least two major reviews of the research on teacher preparation.

Both a 2010 publication by a congressionally mandated panel at the National Academies and a volume published by the American Educational Research Association in 2005 found few empirical studies linking specific field practices to student-learning.

The NCTQ review, though itself not a statistical analysis, aims to fill in some gaps through a wide-ranging survey of programs. The council reviewed 134 programs selected randomly from a stratified national sample against five standards, which were established with the aid of an advisory group of teacher educators and researchers. The sample was designed to include preparation programs from all 50 states and the District of Columbia and to include a mix of private, public, and sectarian schools.

The standards include whether the programs require a full-time student-teaching experience of at least 10 weeks and whether mentor-teachers at the elementary schools in which teacher-candidates are placed met three criteria: three years of teaching experience; the ability to improve student learning; and a knack for working effectively with other adults.

To check for those elements, the council’s analysts examined documents from the preparation programs, such as student-teaching manuals and agreements with local school districts. They supplemented the document review with interviews with principals in schools hosting student-teachers and with on-site visits to five programs.

Among other findings, the report found that:

• Three-quarters of programs reviewed met the ...

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