EQUIP

Putting New Teachers at the Center
Santa Cruz New Teacher ProjectUniversity of California, Santa Cruz
By Ellen Moir

The United States must hire at least two million new teachers over the next decade. New teacher professional development is, however, a neglected area in American education. The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future recently reported that our typical "sink or swim" approach toward teacher induction is a primary reason we lose talented teachers early in their careers. We place new teachers in the most difficult classes in the neediest schools. Support, when available, is often haphazard and inconsistent. It is not surprising a third of newly inducted teachers leave the profession within three years.

In addition, the nation faces a major challenge in reshaping its schools to meet the changing diversity of its population. California, like other states, is experiencing a dramatic demographic shift, with close to 140 different language groups and dozens of national and cultural groups now represented in classrooms. Demographic imbalance between non-minority teachers and minority students means that teachers work with students whose backgrounds are linguistically and culturally different from their own. Such diversity requires teachers and programs supporting their professional development to find approaches and strategies that assist linguistically and culturally diverse students in their transition to a new culture, language and schooling system.

California is responsible for educating one-twelfth of U.S. children, the fastest growing and most diverse student population in the nation. Yet California, by many measures, has failed to provide students with the education they need and deserve. It has the lowest proportion of young adults, ages 18 to 24, with a high school diploma of any state. In 1994, the National Assessment for Educational Progress ranked California dead last in a key literacy measure. In 1995-96, California ranked forty-first nationally in the percentage of personal income allocated to education, and had the highest student-to-teacher ratio in the nation. One 1996 poll reported that over half of California voters thought the school system needed a major overhaul.
In 1996, the state legislature took an unprecedented step forward in reversing California’s declining investment in education by passing The Classroom Size Reduction Act (CSR). Responding to national studies pointing to class size as a key determinant of student achievement, CSR directed close to a billion dollars to lowering K-3 class size to twenty students during 1996-97. Though its rapid implementation has left districts short of space and struggling to hire qualified teachers, the initiative has been popular with voters and educators. Buoyed by widespread support, the legislature has increased revenues for 1997-98 CSR to a billion and a half dollars, including substantial funding for additional teacher preservice and inservice training.
Though smaller class sizes should result in students receiving individual attention and higher quality instruction, the impact of CSR will be undercut by serious staffing problems. A predictable ramification of CSR is that the demand for credentialed teachers has skyrocketed. The state added 20,000 teachers to its rolls during 1996 alone, many from districts' substitute teacher pools. A number of these teachers, though college graduates, have no formal training and no practice teaching experience. Districts have been allocated money for increased inservice training for such teachers, but have had difficulty scheduling training requiring release time due to the shortage of substitutes CSR has created.

One California-based education policy organization, EdSource, estimates that during 1997 one-fourth of all teachers in California worked with only provisional credentials; other sources put the figure as high as 40 percent. The majority of these teachers are placed in the lowest socio-economic, urban, and minority communities. Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) research staff estimate another 200,000 new teachers will be needed by the year 2004 to implement CSR. And California, like the rest of the nation, must also replace the many senior teachers reaching retirement. The colleges and universities training California’s teachers are redesigning their programs to address the shortage, focusing on internships and accelerated undergraduate training. In the near term, however, programs to support new teachers are absolutely critical to ensuring that the benefits of class size reduction aren’t lost due to inadequate teacher preparation.

California’s experience in rapidly training and inducting qualified teachers will likely influence the direction the rest of the nation takes. Assistant Secretary Sharon Robinson from the U.S. Department of Education estimates that we are going to replace half of our teaching force during the next decade, about two million teachers. These teachers will need to be better trained than ever before if students are to be prepared for a society requiring high levels of literacy, advanced technological and problem solving skills, and sensitivity to the rights of a diverse population.

With unprecedented numbers of new teachers entering our public schools there is a tremendous need to develop a comprehensive and collaborative model of support between K-12 education and universities. These efforts need leadership and guidance to promote sustainable school reform that will yield measurable results for both students and teachers.

The New Teacher Center at theUniversity of California, Santa Cruz
Opening its doors in August 1998, the New Teacher Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz is predicated on the belief that the success of our public schools and the achievement of our students depend on the quality of classroom teachers. With this in mind, the New Teacher Center dedicates itself to the development of exemplary new teachers who are responsive to the needs of California's and the nation's diverse student population and who embody the professional norms of ongoing inquiry, assessment, and refinement of classroom practice. The New Teacher Center supports the development of teacher leadership essential to the success of school reform and teacher retention.

The Santa Cruz New Teacher Project (SCNTP), which began in 1988, is now part of the New Teacher Center. The SCNTP is a collaborative effort among the Teacher Education Department at the University of California at Santa Cruz, the Santa Cruz County Office of Education, and sixteen school districts in Santa Cruz, San Benito, and Santa Clara counties. The region includes urban, suburban and rural communities, and the student populations are ethnically, linguistically, and economically diverse. The Pajaro Valley Unified School District, the largest school district in the consortium, is one of the most linguistically impacted in California with over 48% of its students being English language learners. Led by the Teacher Education Program at UCSC, the project has served more than 1500 first and second year K-12 teachers since its inception in 1988. The consortium, comprised of mentor teachers, new teachers, university faculty, union representatives, superintendents, personnel directors, principals and community members determines program philosophy, programmatic implementation, and ongoing evaluation. Currently more than 350 beginning teachers participate in the SCNTP program of intensive, collaborative support that focuses on improving classroom practice and on developing reflective teachers who are responsive to the diverse cultural, social and linguistic background of all students. The project has been recognized throughout California and nationally as a vanguard program that improves new teacher satisfaction as well as performance. The SCNTP has been recognized for excellence by the National Council of States in Education. The California Council on the Education of Teachers has recognized SCNTP for contributions to excellence in education.
Since 1993 the Santa Cruz New Teacher Project has been one of California’s Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment Projects (BTSA). The program costs $5,100 per beginning teacher and is funded jointly by a grant from the California Department of Education and the California Commission for Teacher Credentialing at $3,000 per teacher and, in addition, contributions of $2,100 from local districts. The University and the Santa Cruz County Office of Education contribute administrative costs.

At the heart of the SCNTP are the partnerships that form between the beginning teacher and the new teacher advisor, who are exemplary teachers on loan from their school districts for three years. Carefully matched with the beginning teachers according to grade-level and subject matter expertise, advisors work with twelve to fourteen first and second year teachers. Advisors meet with new teachers weekly. When in the classroom, advisors observe, coach, co-teach, teach demonstration lessons, respond to interactive journals, videotape lessons, and assist with problems as they arise. Time outside the classroom is spent planning, gathering curriculum resources, facilitating communication with principals, and providing emotional support and safe structures for reflection and feedback. Special attention is paid to literacy, language development and the needs of English language learners. Additional support is offered during a monthly seminar series and four release days for reflection, self-assessment, observations, curriculum planning and staff development Advisors work to build strong, trusting relationships that are fundamental to the success of all support strategies. By being familiar with the students in the class, the overall curriculum plan, and the class structure and organization, the advisor is able to provide each new teacher with context specific support.

The project recognizes that new teachers enter the profession at different developmental stages and with individual needs. Support is guided by an on-going cycle of formative assessment centered on the teacher’s Individual Learning Plan. The plan is developed collaboratively by the new teacher and the advisor, based on information from the new teacher’s regular self-assessment using the Developmental Continuum of Teacher Abilities (Moir, Garmston). The Continuum, which is aligned with the California Standards for the Teaching Profession (CSTP), is organized around six standards that describe the broad categories of knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes that characterize effective teaching: Engaging and Supporting All Students in Learning; Creating and Maintaining Effective Environments for Student Learning; Understanding and Organizing Subject Matter for Student Learning; Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences for All Students; Assessing Student Learning; and Developing as a Professional Educator. The Continuum serves as a baseline instrument for formative assessment, an integrated matrix for developing a professional growth plan, and a catalyst for professional reflection and dialogue.

The SCNTP model includes regular formal and informal observation of new teachers by their advisors. Using a peer coaching approach, advisors work with their advisees to identify and collect data of classroom practice and student learning. Together, the advisor and beginning teacher analyze the data collected to relate student outcomes to teacher practice, evaluating the instructional plan and targeting areas for continued growth.
In collaboration with the new teacher advisor, the participants develop a professional portfolio which serves both as a documentation of the new teacher's growth and as a vehicle for on-going self-assessment and reflection. Items selected for the portfolio must be related to one of the teacher's professional growth goals in a particular domain of the Continuum. Evidence may include journal entries, documented observations, lesson plans, pictures, video and audio tapes, a professional project, and student work. The evidence is accompanied by written reflections in which the teacher articulates how each item demonstrates his/her own professional growth or increased student performance in the self-identified area of concentration. Advisors guide the collection and selection of evidence as well as the analysis of the evidence of that growth. The process of portfolio development is a major focus of weekly advisor-new teacher sessions and of monthly seminars.

Evaluation is embedded in the SCNTP. Project staff collects summative evaluation data at program events and at the end of each year, as well as formative data during the course of program implementation. In addition, the Southwest Regional Education Laboratories (SWRL) and faculty of the UCSC Education Department have evaluated SCNTP. The California Educational Research Consortium (CERC) has collected data on SCNTP as part of its statewide evaluation of BTSA programs. These various evaluation studies consistently document the following outcomes:
o increased sense of professional efficacy
o greater job satisfaction
o more frequent professional collaboration
o improved ability to articulate and document professional growth
o improved problem-solving skills
o increased willingness to assume leadership roles
o increased attention to issues of diversity and responsive pedagogy

New teachers report that SCNTP has improved the quality of their teaching and significantly contributed to their successful induction into the profession. Retention data indicate that 90% of participants remain in the field of education.

The New Teacher Project is impacting the schools and districts its serves in arenas other than new teacher support. SCNTP alumni are influencing school site culture as they continue to create collaborative models for professional development. They lobby for sanctioned time to observe and coach each other. Through advocacy and example, they encourage veteran teachers to move their practices forward through collaborative reflection and a focus on improving student outcomes. Early in their careers, they assume leadership roles in school site council meetings, attend literacy support groups, and volunteer to lead professional training sessions. SCNTP programs develop confident teachers who look within the profession for models for educational reform and accept their responsibility to contribute to educational policy making.
Site administrators testify to the effectiveness of SCNTP in improving their ability to offer effective and specific assistance to new staff. In a 1995 survey of administrators, 95% of respondents credited SCNTP with significantly improving the performance of beginning teachers. Principals note that SCNTP programs lead to improved teacher moral, better classroom instruction, and more effective classroom management. According to one principal, "We saw more growth in our first-year teachers than we have ever seen before. By working as a team with a veteran teacher, they are giving the kids in those classrooms a far better education than they would get if that link wasn’t there." Several administrators have allocated time at staff meetings for reflective conversations and problem solving, and have supported peer observation and coaching.

In 1995, Pajaro Valley Unified School District, the largest school district in the SCNTP consortium, revised its teacher evaluation system to respond to teachers’ developmental needs. Since SCNTP’s Developmental Continuum of Teacher Abilities was the cornerstone for the plan, reflective goal-setting, self-assessment, peer coaching and professional portfolio development are embedded in evaluation procedures. Both teachers and administrators believe the evaluation system is valid and constructive. Three other districts are examining and modifying their evaluation procedures to incorporate elements of the SCNTP model.

Collaboration between SCNTP and the UCSC’s Teacher Education Program has forged a strong seamless link between preservice and inservice training. Student teachers learn to practice the collaborative models and performance-based assessment methods that characterize the Project's work. SCNTP staff worked with university supervisors and faculty to create a Developmental Continuum for Student Teacher Abilities for use in the UCSC Teacher Education Program. Student teachers self-assess using the Continuum and then meet with their supervisor and master teacher to reflect together and to develop a dialogue about teaching practice. SCNTP has also trained master teachers, university supervisors and preservice teachers in the peer coaching model.

The SCNTP has worked closely for the past eleven years with the California Department of Education (CDE) and the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC). This collaboration has included the conceptualization and design of two statewide trainings for BTSA programs: A Guide to Prepare Support Providers for Work with Beginning Teachers, and A Guide to Becoming Culturally Responsive and Responsible Educators. The SCNTP also conducted the validity study and final revisions of the California Standards for the Teaching Profession, leading to their adoption in January, 1997, by the California Department of Education and the

Commission on Teacher Credentialing. In addition, the Project conducted a state-funded study of the various formative assessment models in use by BTSAs, including observation instruments and systems, individualized professional growth plans, and formative portfolios.
The New Teacher Center is building on the work of the Santa Cruz New Teacher Project to transform new teacher professional development practices in the United States. During the next ten years, half of the teachers who will occupy American classrooms will be hired. An investment now in a major restructuring of induction practices can provide the support beginning teachers need to become teacher leaders and caring, competent and qualified professionals prepared to work with our increasingly diverse student population. We must put new teachers at the center.

http://www.newteachercenter.org/article3.php

posted by AcrosticGuy @ 7:49 PM