Teaching our teachers.

Schools of education want some respect. And they're raising their standards as well as the standing of teachers to get it.

Building an education system without highly skilled teachers is like building a barn without nails: When the wind blows, it's bound to fall. As public education weathers ongoing storms, the teaching profession can no longer be ignored.

And ignored it has been. A look at the last decade of education reform reveals a lack of attention to the crucial role teachers play in a child's academic success. Professor Linda Darling-Hammond of Columbia's Teachers College emphasizes that, as hard as we try, we cannot make reform teacher-proof. Class sizes, curriculum standards and discipline policies, for instance, are all important pieces of the education system. But, she says, "Ultimately, you can't get more kids learning at a higher level unless you have teachers who really know, not only their subject matter, but how to teach that kind of challenging material in lots of different ways to people who learn in different ways."

Two of the country's largest philanthropic institutions concerned with education policy apparently agree. The Rockefeller Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York have joined forces to support the new National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, which Darling-Hammond directs. The commission aims to turn public attention toward building a teaching force in all communities and all schools that can teach all children well - a task that, according to Darling-Hammond, has been "neglected in this country in this century." And one essential step, she says, toward improving teaching is the improvement of teacher education.

SETTING THE STANDARDS

Schools of education have taken seriously the once comedic line "I can't get no respect." They produce a majority of the advanced degrees granted by universities, yet receive a smaller percentage of funds than other programs. This fact has led two national experts in the field of teacher education - Arthur Wise and Darling-Hammond - to refer to schools of education as the "cash cows" of the university system.

Still, respect doesn't arrive upon demand like a butler to a bell. Respect must be earned. And it appears that after decades of bell-ringing, some teachers of teachers have learned this lesson. Today, by accepting the challenge of meeting new and difficult national benchmarks, schools of education are raising the standards - and the standing - of teaching.

The cooperation between organizations steering teacher education reform is impressive. The National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) are three separate organizations providing a continuum of rigorous standards for teachers.

Traditionally, state departments of education set licensing standards for teachers. Recently, many states have handed this responsibility to state standards boards. Still, license requirements are generally set by a board that is not connected to teacher education programs, so college graduation requirements do not necessarily mirror licensure requirements. The problem becomes particularly cumbersome when people attend college in a state other than where they choose to teach. In this case, the person will probably have to complete additional coursework to get a teaching license.

Advanced certification - recognition of excellent teaching, often accompanied by a pay increase - requires yet another assessment not necessarily aligned with the two mentioned above. Until now.

Now states have the ability to latch onto a series of requirements and assessments that are all interrelated. Using the advanced certification requirements developed by the NBPTS as a springboard, a set of standards for teacher licensing and for teacher education programs have been developed by INTASC and NCATE respectively. States adopting all of these will have a complete system with a continuum of standards. Teachers in these states will find that their coursework in college, their license requirements and their advanced certification requirements build upon one another.

Wise, president of NCATE, believes that states should not license teachers until they have passed assessments of subject matter and teaching knowledge, and demonstrated over the period of a year or two that they can actually teach. Teacher preparation should be a career-long process. "Professional teachers cannot be fully prepared in four years," he says.

Thanks to Wise and his colleagues, public school teachers in some states will find that their own education, initial license and advanced certification requirements are coordinated - for the first time ever.

This is also the first time, says Professor Darling-Hammond, that these standards are based on solid research about effective teaching. "Until recently," she says, "teacher education and standards have been [based on] conventional wisdom and...mythology." That is why today's efforts to reform teaching are succeeding in ways that past efforts haven't.

That is why, "finally," she says, "teaching is becoming a profession."

No state has implemented the complete package, particularly since the INTASC standards for licensure are very new and examinations to measure achievement of those standards are still being developed. But many states are moving toward it by creating a series of opportunities to strengthen the teacher work force. Indiana has an autonomous, teacher-dominated professional standards board, a state-mandated, state-funded training program for new teachers, and 84 percent of its schools of education are NCATE accredited. In North Carolina, 96 percent of teacher education programs are NCATE accredited, a state-supported mentoring program for beginning teachers has been proposed and extensive support exists for teachers who work toward national certification. Teacher education programs in Nevada are all NCATE accredited, but the state has no formal program for beginning teachers and no policy supporting national certification.

THE TEACHER EDUCATION DEBATE

Persuading policymakers and the public to take teachers more seriously can be difficult. Public opinion and trust rank low for the profession overall, partly because people believe teachers need better training. A 1993 report from Penn & Schoen Associates, a corporate and political survey research agency, reports that only 18 percent of Americans believe teachers are trained well enough to meet the challenge of improving student performance. Picking from a list of doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers and social workers, one in four says teachers have the least demanding professional training requirements. In light of these perceptions, getting money for improvements in teacher education, professional development or salary schedules remains one of the greatest challenges for the profession's champions.

In fact, lawmakers in many states have changed teacher certification policies, allowing professionals with subject expertise to enter teaching without formal training. Originally, these programs were created to fill teacher shortages. But recently, legislators are promoting alternative certification as a way around a system that they feel helpless to improve.

North Carolina Representative Stephen Wood has sponsored an alternative certification bill in his state. "The impetus came from a local school district that said they needed to be able to do something quickly when they had a crisis," he explains. And the crisis is not confined to one district. Research shows that more than half the teachers in North Carolina - and in fact in the nation - will be leaving the profession over the next 10 years.

Still, Representative Wood's interest in streamlining the certification process goes further. North Carolina's Interim Education Study Commission heard a presentation from the Department of Defense about a program designed to move people who once taught in the military into the public schools. "These people are seasoned veterans in education and teaching," says Wood. "Why put them through all the hoops that we [require of] someone who's just out of high school? They waived the student teaching requirement for one fellow because of his teaching experience in the military. But they don't always do that."

This legislator's interest in circumventing the education bureaucracy is, basically, practical. After all, state lawmakers are caught in a corner when it comes to managing education personnel. They need high quality professionals; they need a teacher in front of every classroom. And the supply doesn't always meet the demand. This is particularly true in math and science where some states have as many as 50 percent of teachers teaching those subjects without having majored - or minored - in them.

Yet a large body of research assembled by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future shows that instructors who have the benefit of teacher education teach more effectively, especially in math, science and reading. Furthermore, states that have introduced recruitment incentives and preparation programs tailored to mid-career changers have solved shortages without hiring untrained teachers.

Policymakers also struggle with what they see as an extreme lack of control over a work force they must pay for. According to author Harriet Tyson, professional associations must accept their share of the blame for this perception. In her book, Who Will Teach the Children: Progress and Resistance in Teacher Education, Tyson observes:

"As long as unions thwart efforts to dismiss poor teachers and reward superior ones, the quality of the teaching force will remain disconcertingly uneven, and the public will remain unwilling to grant more autonomy to teachers. The lack of autonomy will in turn continue to discourage smart people from becoming teachers. As long as unions oppose attempts to distinguish between good and excellent teachers, the choice of mentors to supervise student teachers and beginning teachers will remain haphazard and unprofessional."

Here, Tyson has presented a photograph of a disjointed profession. It is this picture that has helped to lower the standing of teaching in the public's eye over the last 15 years or so. And it is this picture that many of education's leaders, including the teachers' unions, are working hard to change.

A GLIMPSE OF SUN

Despite the gloomy forecast of its detractors, or perhaps fed by it, advocates of formal teacher education and certification processes have developed a new system that will not, they say, accept mediocrity. Wise says his organization strives to maintain the highest standards for teacher education. "Some schools of education continue to train teachers the old-fashioned way," he explains. "NCATE insists on a strong liberal arts education, in-depth preparation in the teaching field, lots of practical experience in teaching and other requirements."

The National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) support national standards for schools of education and advanced teacher certification. "Both NCATE and the national board have representation from NEA and AFT," says Bob Eagan, president of the Connecticut Education Association.

One of the first people to be appointed and elected to both bodies, Eagan sees the unions' involvement as critical. "About six years ago, the NEA adopted a resolution that asked for preferential hiring for students who graduate from nationally accredited colleges and universities. It's a very significant resolution because we're saying that we recognize the rigor of the training programs of [these institutions]. They embody what we believe is necessary for the depth and breadth of a successful teacher."

Education school deans also are demonstrating support for national accreditation. "I see the deans taking more initiative nationally," says Ann Lydecker, dean of education at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. "At one time the state of Texas threw out NCATE completely. They're coming back in, institution by institution. There are a lot of us recognizing the value [of meeting national standards]." Today, approximately 46 percent of the nation's teacher education institutions are accredited by NCATE.

The Penn & Schoen survey mentioned earlier also provides some light for those supporting rigorous standards for teachers: Seventy-eight percent of respondents favor requiring teachers to graduate from a nationally accredited professional school; 83 percent favor higher salaries for teachers trained in professional schools that meet national standards; and 73 percent would favor their local schools hiring only teachers trained according to national standards.

WHAT LIES AHEAD?

It's hard to say what lies ahead for teachers and the policies that guide their profession. Still, the evidence points toward a greater chance of success than with previous efforts to improve the quality of teaching in our public schools. The cooperation between national organizations, teachers' unions and school deans in creating a coordinated set of standards for teachers is encouraging.

One unanswered question is the extent to which lawmakers will support these efforts. Art Wise would like to see legislators follow the path they used to improve other professions by insisting "that all schools of education meet rigorous professional standards and that all teachers meet rigorous knowledge and performance expectations before they are granted the license to teach."

If teachers can earn the respect of policymakers by insisting on high quality standards within the profession and, perhaps, by supporting the removal of incompetent teachers from the classroom, there's a good chance legislators will consider such mandates. Until that respect solidifies, teachers will continue their struggle for honor.

RELATED ARTICLE: A "HOW TO" FOR BETTER TEACHING AND LEARNING

A blueprint for recruiting, preparing, supporting and rewarding excellent teachers was released in September by the National Commission on Teaching & America's Future (NCTAF).

The report, "What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future," was developed around "the common sense notion that all American students are entitled to teachers who know their subjects, understand their students and what they need, and have developed the skills to make learning come alive," according to Velma Cobb, associate director of NCTAF. She spoke to legislators and staff at the National Conference of State Legislatures' annual meeting in St. Louis, Mo., in late July.

The report is primarily aimed at policymakers, educators and policy analysts. In it are detailed recommendations for state lawmakers who want to overhaul the teaching profession. Here are some of the highlights.

GOALS FOR IMPROVEMENTS

* All children will be taught by teachers who have the knowledge, skills and commitment to teach children well.

* All teacher education programs will meet professional standards or they will be closed.

* All teachers will have access to high-quality professional development and regular time for collegial work and planning.

* Both teachers and principals will be hired and retained based on their ability to meet professional standards of practice.

* Teachers' salaries will be based on their knowledge and skills.

* Quality teaching will be the central investment of schools. Most education dollars will be spent on classroom teaching.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO STATES

* Get serious about standards for both students and teachers (establish professional standards boards in every state and close inadequate schools of education).

* Reinvent teacher preparation and professional development (create and fund mentoring programs for beginning teachers along with evaluation of teaching skills; create stable, high-quality sources of professional development).

* Overhaul teacher recruitment and put qualified teachers in every classroom (increase the ability of poor districts to pay for qualified teachers; eliminate barriers to teacher mobility).

* Encourage and reward teaching knowledge and skill (remove incompetent teachers; set goals and enact incentives for national board certification in every state and district).

* Create schools that are organized for student and teacher success (invest more in teachers and technology and less in nonteaching staff such as administrators and their support staff, instructional and mental health specialists, aides and security personnel).

There are more specific recommendations in the report. Also of interest to policymakers is a "State-by-State Report Card" ranking states according to their current investments in teacher quality.

For more information about the report, contact Connie Koprowicz in NCSL's Denver office at [phone] ext. 136, or by e-mail to connie.koprowicz[at]ncsl.org.

Connie Koprowicz is NCSL's expert on teacher education.