Article #3
Overhauling Teacher Quality
Teacher Training
The most important features of the teacher training program to
be implemented by the Minneapolis Public Schools include the following:
1) >>>>> Teachers aspiring to teach at the grades K-5
level will earn a Masters of Liberal Arts degree organized by officials at the
Minneapolis Public Schools. This will involve a 34-week intensive course of
study during one full academic year, followed by a summer of research, writing,
and defense of a master’s thesis.
2) >>>>> Teachers aspiring to teach at the grades 6-8
and 9-12 levels will earn field-specific, non- education master’s degrees
giving them expert knowledge relevant to the classes that they will teach.
3) >>>>> Teachers aspiring to teach at all grades
(K-5, 6-8, and 9-12) will serve a full year of internship before gaining
consideration for employment in the Minneapolis Public Schools.
Thus, all teachers aspiring to teach in the Minneapolis Public
Schools will earn a master’s degree in a rigorous academic program and then
serve one full year of internship.
Before proceeding to further discussion of my program for
teacher training, I give here a summary of prevailing teacher training
programs:
The
Currently Abysmal Training of Prospective Teachers for Grades K-5
Programs that train large contingents of prospective teachers
include the University of Minnesota/ Twin Cities, Augsburg College, and the
Universities of Concordia, Hamline, St. Catherine, and St. Thomas, and
Minnesota State University/Mankato.
At most of these institutions, prospective grades K-5 teachers
major in elementary education. Hamline is unique among the metro area
institutions offering teacher preparation programs in requiring its aspiring
K-5 teachers to earn bachelor’s degrees in legitimate disciplines (e. g.,
mathematics, chemistry, history, economics, English, fine arts). At most other institutions, teachers aspiring
to teach at grades K-5 get a degree in elementary education. For such a degree, students take courses that
include Educational Psychology, Diversity and Education, Theory to Practice,
Schools and Society, and Exceptionality.
The only meek nod to subject area specificity is in courses such as Social Studies, Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science Instruction in the Elementary Grades. Education professors, not subject area experts, teach these courses.
Students at the University of Minnesota who aspire to teach,
both at grades K-5 and grades 6-12, are strongly encouraged to get a master’s
degree. Students in the College of
Education and Human Development typically do their coursework during the summer
and fall terms; they student teach in
the spring, also taking two education courses online.
The route to the Masters of Education degree takes just three
semesters. Once the college or
university certification program is complete, prospective teachers must take
exams that include a basic skills exam, a content-focused pedagogic exam, and a
mathematics exam. Upon passing these
exams, licensure is granted. The license
is permanent, given the teacher’s ongoing demonstration of professional
development through certified participation in teacher-in-service days,
workshops, conferences, and the like; and
with the option to pursue an advanced degree, typically a Masters of Education
in teaching elementary education (remembering that a master’s degree is strongly
encouraged by officials in the College of Education and Human Development for
students who seek teacher certification via the schedule of courses at the
University of Minnesota).
The Need to Retrain
Teachers at the Level of the Locally Centralized School District
Such teacher training programs are cash cows for colleges and
universities:
Bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education are academically
insubstantial but huge revenue generators for institutions of putative higher
learning. The ruse pulled by officials the
University of Minnesota in encouraging students to pursue both of these empty
degrees for certification constitutes irresponsible philistinism of the worst
sort.
Over the long haul, we need to dissolve our departments,
colleges, and schools of education and come to a consensus on a new approach to
training teachers:
The transformation nationally will require much time to confront
entrenched interests of the many adults in the education establishment who
benefit from the current system that is so deleterious to the interests of
excellent teachers and students waiting to receive a substantive education. The program designed for the Minneapolis
Publics Schools could be implemented immediately, given full focus and
dedication to the task, before that time when we can expect to dismantle
departments, schools, and colleges of education. The immediate task is to retrain teachers
newly certified after participating in current, useless programs of teacher
preparation.
As to veteran teachers, my abiding estimate is that no more than 10% of the teachers presently on staff in the Minneapolis Public Schools are truly excellent; 15% are so terrible that they never should have been allowed in a classroom; and the remainder fall in the broad 75% that are intolerably mediocre. The terrible teachers in that 15% category will most likely always be terrible and in almost all cases will have to be jettisoned. Most teachers in the 75% category of mediocrity should be given the option to retrain and prove their mettle for retention.
In my program for retraining teachers of the Minneapolis Pubic Schools, teachers aspiring to teach at the K-5 level will have to undergo an intensive full year of weekly, all-day training leading to a high-quality Masters of Liberal Arts degree; followed by a full academic year internship.
The Masters of Liberal Arts Degree for Aspiring Minneapolis Public Schools Teachers at Grades K-5
Teachers at level K-5 should be broadly and deeply knowledgeable
scholars, at home in the intellectual worlds of mathematics, natural science,
history, literature, and the fine arts. The
key components of the academic program leading to this degree are described
below. It is expected that the courses
taken for the Masters of Liberal Arts will be taken intensively, five days a
week, during one full school year, from late August until early June. Over the summer, the aspiring teacher studying
for the Masters of Liberal Arts degree will write her or his master’s thesis,
then the remaining months of the master’s program will be spent as a classroom
intern undergoing a full academic year of classroom observation and teaching
under the guidance of a teacher identified as highly competent. The latter teacher will be chosen for
manifesting as much excellence as we dare hope, given current realities with
regard to teacher quality.
Officials in the Minneapolis Public Schools should embrace these
components and set about establishing a program in conjunction with one of the
universities in the Twin Cities. Those
representing the Minneapolis Public Schools should articulate exactly what they
want from the degree-granting institution. From the degree-granting university, this will
mean embracing the details of the program given below, providing the
professorial expertise required, and following through on the administrative
aspects leading to the granting of the Masters of Liberal Arts to the K-5
teachers of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
The program and requirements for the Masters of Liberal Arts
degree for prospective teachers at levels K-5 are given as follows:
Mathematics
During the full academic year of retraining of teachers at grades K-5, professors of mathematics should be brought in by decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools to give educators of the very young a thorough overview of mathematics up through calculus. Teachers at grades K-5 need a fundamental readjustment of the way that they view themselves. They must regard themselves as capable learners and practitioners in the full range of human knowledge. We cannot abide the level of math phobia that often abides in the hearts of many current K-5 teachers. The way for an aspiring teacher to overcome mathematical phobia and prepare to launch the young student on the K-12 mathematical experience is for everyone involved to know what is ahead on this exciting quest for knowledge in arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, statistics, and calculus.
University of Minnesota Mathematics Professor Jonathon Rogness has commented to me, “It is always advisable that a teacher have knowledge far beyond the concepts that he or she immediately covers in class.”
If teachers themselves had a substantive education in either high school or as undergraduates at a college or university, then reviewing previously learned mathematical concepts will not be difficult: Much of the information is either lying latent for reawakening or, even more happily, is actually operating nearer the surface to be pulled upward into the brightness of mental reflection, ready for application. But for those teachers who have done what our K-12 schools and universities too often encourage, somehow muddling through math courses without really understanding for lack of teachers capable of giving them clarity, then the process will be more arduous.
And since we want them to be teachers who most certainly never
themselves abet the muddling through approach to mathematical education, we
want them to have confidence as capable mathematicians.
Over the course of ten (10) weeks, aspiring K-5
teachers studying for the Masters of Liberal Arts degree will pursue
the following topical schedule for mathematics:
Week #1 >>>>> Fundamental
Math
Week #2 >>>>> Algebra I
Week #3 >>>>> Geometry
Weeks #4 and #5 >>>>> Algebra
II .
Weeks #6 and #7 >>>>> Functions,
Statistics, and Trigonometry (FST)
Weeks #8, #9, and #10 >>>>> Calculus
(corresponding to a full year of college-level calculus)
Natural
Science
Prospective teachers at K-5 should also be highly confident in
themselves as students of natural science, one of the five key subject areas
emphasized during the K-5 years. The three natural science fields that should
dominate their own study in route to the Masters of Liberal Arts degree are
biology, chemistry, and physics. Professors
in these fields should teach compact courses of about two weeks each,
during which the prospective K-5 teachers review (ideally) or learn well for
the first time (as too often will be the case) the most important concepts
pertinent to these important fields of natural science.
Over the course of six (6) weeks, aspiring K-5
teachers studying for the Masters of Liberal Arts degree will pursue
the following topical schedule for natural science:
Week #1 and Week #2 >>>>>
Biology
Week #3 and Week #4 >>>>>
Chemistry
Week #5 and Week #6 >>>>>
Physics
History
Teaching for all subjects in our current system of K-12
education is mediocre. Knowledge of
history is particularly unskillfully imparted to students. And what is true
generally is especially true at the K-5 level. In our K-5 schools, history is
subsumed under an amalgamation known as “social studies,” in an innervated
curricular approach that is entirely consistent with the “constructivist”
precepts under which teachers have been trained. There is a great deal of focus on the lives of
the students, in which they are asked to reflect about their own families and
community, in the absence of any social scientific context in which to compare
their own family mores and structures with others that prevail in the general
society. Nothing is learned of any
substance in the way of sociology, psychology, economics, and government--- and
certainly nothing very coherent in the way of history.
Under our new curriculum, history will be the subject identified
for study at the K-5 level. History as
an appellation is used rather than “social studies,” because humankind’s
experience over time has produced the life that we live today, and when we
study history in depth, we also learn a great deal about sociology, psychology,
economics, and government. For that
matter, great discoveries in mathematics and natural science are contextualized
in a study of history, and knowledge of the essence of those discoveries is
gained.
Hence, history is key to full understanding of all subjects
germane to the liberal arts.
Over the course of eight (8) weeks, aspiring K-5 teachers
studying for the Masters of Liberal Arts degree will pursue the following
topical schedule for world and American history:
Week #1 >>>>>
Prehistory and Developments Through Earliest Civilizations (Beginnings to 700
B. C.)
Week #2 >>>>> Classical
Period (700 B. C to 500 A. D.)
Week #3 >>>>> European
Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation, Contemporaneous World
Development (500
A. D. to 1500 A. D.)
Week #4 >>>>> The
Rise of the Nation-State and the Importance of the European Enlightenment (1600
to 1800)
Week #5 >>>>>
Imperialism and the Industrial Revolution (1600 to 1900)
Week #6 >>>>> Major
Events of the 20th Century and Early 21st Century (1900 to 2016)
Week #7 >>>>> American
History through the 18th Century
Week #8 >>>>> American History
from 1800 through 2022
Language
Arts
Over the course of six (6) weeks, aspiring K-5 teachers studying for the Masters of Liberal Arts degree will pursue the following topical schedule for language arts:
Week #1 and Week #2 >>>>>
Classical Greek and Roman Literature; Classics of World
Literature;
Premodern and Renaissance Classics of Europe; Shakespearean
and Elizabethan Literature
Week #3 and Week #4 >>>>>
Modern and Contemporary British and American Literature
Week #5 >>>>>
African American Literature and the Literature of Other Major
Ethnic Groups in the
United States
Week #6 >>>>> English
Grammar, Syntax, and Written Composition
Fine
Arts
Over the course of four (4) weeks, aspiring K-5 teachers studying
for the Masters of Liberal Arts degree will pursue the following topical
schedule for fine arts, which adopts a chronological approach for presenting
the history of the visual arts, architecture, and music:
Week #1 >>>>>
The Prehistoric World (Beginnings to 3,000 B. C);
The Ancient World (3,000 B C. to 700 B. C.)
Week #2 >>>>>
The Classical World (700 B. C. to 500 A. D.);
The Medieval World (500 to 1500 A. D.)
Week #3 >>>>>
The First-Stage Modern World (1450 to 1750); The Second-Stage
Modern World (1750 to 1945); The Contemporary
World (1945-2022)
Week #4 >>>>>
Survey of Musical Forms and Composition;
Composers and Music in the Western Classical
Style;
Traditional Music of Asia, Africa, and Latin America;
Blues, Blues-Based, and Blues-Inspired Music
in the United States;
Folk and Country Music;
Musical Instruments
Additional
Requirements for Prospective Teachers at Grades K-5
Teachers aspiring to teach at grades K-5 will, after completing the above-given
course of study during a full academic year, research, write, and defend a
master’s thesis in the course of the following summer.
Then, during the succeeding academic year, aspiring K-5 teachers
will serve a full year of internship before gaining consideration for
employment in the Minneapolis Public Schools.
Revolutionizing
Training for Teachers of Students in Grades 6-8 (Middle School) And Grades 9-12
(High School)
Teachers of students at grades 6-8 and at grades 9-12 will, in
the revolutionized curriculum in this program for achieving academic
excellence, of necessity be first-rate scholars possessing broad and deep
knowledge of the subject areas that they will teach.
As with teacher aspirants at the grades K-5 level, a master’s
degrees in education will not be recognized. Teachers aspiring to teach at the
grades 6-8 and 9-12 levels will earn degrees in departments relevant to
their teaching fields (mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, economics, history,
government, economics, world literature, music, art, world language, vocational
or technological).
As in the case of K-5 teachers, teacher aspirants at the
secondary level (grades 6-8 or 9-12) will serve a full year of internship
before undergoing evaluation for employment in the Minneapolis Public Schools.
Thus, for both teacher aspirants at the K-5 level and those at
grades 6-8 and 9-12, the entire program in the aftermath of earning a
bachelor’s degree will typically take three years.
Such teachers will thereby gain professional status via academic
training as rigorous as programs in law and medicine. They should be paid accordingly, with median
salaries rising to $95,000 from the currently prevailing median of $77,000.
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