Worldwide: Teacher Quality & Teacher Training

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debbie
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Worldwide: Teacher Quality & Teacher Training

Post by debbie »

The National Council on Teacher Quality USA:


http://www.nctq.org/about/
About

The National Council on Teacher Quality advocates for reforms in a broad range of teacher policies at the federal, state and local levels in order to increase the number of effective teachers. In particular, we recognize the absence of much of the evidence necessary to make a compelling case for change and seek to fill that void with a research agenda that has direct and practical implications for policy. We are committed to lending transparency and increasing public awareness about the four sets of institutions that have the greatest impact on teacher quality: states, teacher preparation programs, school districts and teachers unions.
Our Board of Directors and Advisory Board are composed of Democrats, Republicans and Independents, all of whom believe that the teaching profession is way overdue for significant reform in how we recruit, prepare, retain and compensate teachers.

Based in Washington, D.C., the National Council on Teacher Quality was founded in 2000 to provide an alternative national voice to existing teacher organizations and to build the case for a comprehensive reform agenda that would challenge the current structure and regulation of the profession.
The latest 2014 report:

http://www.nctq.org/dmsStage/Teacher_Pr ... 014_Report
Last edited by debbie on Thu Feb 19, 2015 5:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Debbie Hepplewhite
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Post by debbie »

The 'Wisconsin Reading Coalition' flags up poor teacher-training quality:


http://www.wisconsinreadingcoalition.org/problems
Inadequate Teacher Training

Wisconsin's colleges of education, as rated by organizations like the National Council of Teacher Quality in 2006, 2007, and 2009, receive low scores for preparing future teachers of reading. One major state program was found to cover only two of the five essential components of reading. Further, DPI was criticized for failing to hold preparation programs accountable for the quality of teachers they produce, yet retaining full authority over the program approval process. As a result, many teachers indicate they find themselves in the classroom without the necessary tools to produce competent readers.


Professional development for practicing teachers is dominated by districts and professional organizations that often ignore the vast body of science while frequently promoting disproven methods and focusing on more tangential issues of classroom control, teacher leadership skills, and motivational techniques. Examples from a typical state reading conference include promotion of unscientific instruction based on guessing strategies, as well as a fundamentally flawed revisioning of Joseph Torgesen's seminal article on early intervention, “Catch Them Before They Fall.”

Click here to read more about teacher training.
Note: I've added the red above to highlight how people keep drawing attention to the promotion of guessing strategies and how they persist despite the warnings in research.
Weak Teacher Licensure Examination

Wisconsin's current licensure examination for elementary and special education teachers and reading specialists requires little or no knowledge of beginning reading acquisition or instruction. Only one quarter of the questions concern reading at all, critical knowledge of beginning reading is largely untested, and a candidate could miss all the questions on reading and still pass. Even reading specialists in Wisconsin have not been required to take a stand-alone exam in reading. In The State Teacher Policy Yearbook 2007, Wisconsin was the only state to receive a grade of F in teacher licensure. Thanks to Act 166, beginning in 2014, new elementary and special education teachers and reading specialists will be required to take the Foundations of Reading examination. This should drive changes in teacher preparation.
Click here to read more about teacher licensure.
Last edited by debbie on Fri Feb 13, 2015 10:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
Debbie Hepplewhite
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Post by debbie »

Read about the international collaborative efforts of the signatories of Steven Dykstra's letter in the 'Washington Post' - this is a long-standing and on-going attempt by many to draw attention to flawed reading instruction and flawed and inadequate training of teachers:
Another blast in the reading wars

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ans ... ding-wars/
Here’s the Dykstra-written letter, with the names of signing scholars at the end:

Like Washington Post blogger Valerie Strauss, we also regret that the Reading Wars continue to plague education. However, this cannot be blamed on organizations like the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), which recently published its findings on how well our colleges and universities prepare future teachers to teach reading to young students. Rather, the Reading Wars persist because of the continued dissemination of false information about the process of becoming an effective reader, with the latest example being Strauss’s own blog on August 13. Strauss’s pronouncements are particularly damaging, appearing as they do under the banner of the Washington Post, arguably the most trusted source of unbiased information for the nation’s decision makers. As such, they require a decisive response.
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Post by debbie »

http://www.nctq.org/dmsView/Teacher_Pre ... 013_Report
Less than 10 percent of rated programs earn three stars or more. Only four programs, all secondary, earn four stars: Lipscomb and Vanderbilt, both in Tennessee; Ohio State University; and Furman University in South Carolina. Only one institution, Ohio State, earns more than three stars for both an elementary (31⁄2 stars) and a secondary (4 stars) program.

1)It is far too easy to get into a teacher preparation program. Just over a quarter of programs restrict admissions to students in the top half of their class, compared with the highest-performing countries, which limit entry to the top third.

2)Fewer than one in nine elementary programs and just over one-third of high school programs are preparing candidates in content at the level necessary to teach the new Common Core State Standards now being implemented in classrooms in 45 states and the District of Columbia.

3)The “reading wars” are far from over. Three out of four elementary teacher preparation programs still are not teaching the methods of reading instruction that could substantially lower the number of children who never become proficient readers, from 30 percent to under 10 percent. Instead, the teacher candidate is all too often told to develop his or her “own unique approach” to teaching reading.

4)Just 7 percent of programs ensure that their student teachers will have uniformly strong experiences, such as only allowing them to be placed in classrooms taught by teachers who are themselves effective, not just willing volunteers.

For now, the evaluations provide clear and convincing evidence, based on a four-star rating system, that a vast majority of teacher preparation programs do not give aspiring teachers adequate return on their investment of time and tuition dollars. These are among the most alarming findings:
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Post by debbie »

Here is a piece about proposed changes to teacher-training in Australia:

Changes to teaching degrees are no guarantee of success for kids


http://theconversation.com/changes-to-t ... kids-37513
No mention is made of specialists in the arts, health or other humanities, which seems remiss. However, Recommendation 17 is that all primary and secondary teachers should be teachers of literacy, which will require substantial reworking of some secondary education degrees.
I've added the highlighting above.

I don't know what is intended behind recommendation 17, but I have long since maintained that ALL primary and secondary teachers should be knowledgeable about phonics and how to teach and support in phonics - for reading and for spelling as required.
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Post by debbie »

Australia: 1st June 2015, Chris Pyne commits to improving teaching-training:


https://ministers.education.gov.au/pyne ... -appointed
The Hon Christopher Pyne MP
Minister for Education and Training
Leader of the House

The Minister for Education and Training, the Hon Christopher Pyne MP, has welcomed new appointments to the Board of the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL).

“The Australian Government is absolutely committed to improving the quality of teacher training – the most important factor affecting student performance,” Mr Pyne said.

“AITSL plays a pivotal role in implementing the Government’s response to the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group report Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers.

“As part of the 2015-16 Budget, we are providing $16.9 million over the next four years to implement the Government’s response to the TEMAG report to improve teacher education in Australia.
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Post by debbie »

Information about assessing would-be teachers in Australia:

http://teacheredtest.acer.edu.au
The Literacy and Numeracy Test (the Test) is designed to assess for pre-service teachers aspects of their personal literacy and numeracy skills which can be assessed online through a combination of multiple choice and constructed response questions. It is the expectation of teacher employers and the public that all pre-service teachers will have sat and passed the test from 2016.

Well trained, skilled and knowledgeable teachers provide the foundation for a high quality education system in which every Australian student receives quality teaching. Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers is the report of a Ministerial Advisory Group on Teacher Education. The report made recommendations which the Advisory Group believes will improve the opportunities available for pre-service teachers to become the best teacher they can be. The Australian Government now has work underway to make the changes recommended including the introduction of a national Test for pre-service teacher education students.

Sitting the Test in 2015 is voluntary. Passing the Test will provide assurance to future employers and to the general public that graduating teachers have high level literacy and numeracy skills. In 2015 the costs of sitting the Test will be covered by the Australian Government, and a pass in the Test will count in the future when the Test becomes part of new requirements. Not passing the Test in 2015 incurs no penalty.
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Post by debbie »

Very interesting video footage of Marj Newbury, experienced international phonics trainer, at the UK Reading Reform Foundation March 2015 conference - very revealing and thought-provoking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDZNePR ... e=youtu.be
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Post by debbie »

More from Australia - a survey into the perceptions and realities of teacher quality with regard to 'literacy':


http://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=1230
Do Australian teachers have poor literacy skills? Let’s look at the evidence

By Eileen Honan

Australians have been sold the idea that our primary school teachers today have poor literacy standards, not only by popular media but often by politicians and sometimes even by the universities that train our teachers. So how true is it? What evidence is there to support these claims? My colleagues* and I decided to find out.

This blog post is a report on our ongoing research. We haven’t finished yet. Our starting point is a survey of what the profession itself thinks (if you are a primary school teacher you might like to join in). We made a few surprising discoveries just to get to this point.

The neverending story

As Professor Bill Louden pointed out a few years and a few reports ago, there have been over 100 reports on teacher education in the last 40 years.

The latest instalment in the neverending story about what is wrong with the preparation of Australian classroom teachers was released earlier this year. It is the Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers Report
Debbie Hepplewhite
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