UIC’s Approach to K-12 Teacher Preparation

Victoria Chou, DeanUniversity of Illinois at Chicago

College of EducationJuly 20, 2007

Presentation to the Wellington Group

Preview

• The Need

• Challenges to Schools of Education

• UIC’s “Approach”

• Monitoring Progress

• Summing Up

The Need

Background

• Education a national and state priority

• Urgent need for best teachers and school leaders in high-poverty schools serving predominantly minority K-12 students

African American and Latino 17-year-olds Read at Same Levels as White 13-year-olds

Source: NAEP 1999 Long Term Trends Summary Tables (online)

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

150 200 250 300 350

White 8th GradersLatino 12th GradersAfrican American 12th Graders

Archived Information

Cumulative Effects of TeachingFifth Grade Math Scores: Tennessee

Source: Sanders & Rivers, “Cumulative and Residual Effects of Teachers on Future Student Academic Achievement” (1996).

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Student PercentileScore

29%29%

83%83%

After 3 Years of Very

Ineffective Teachers

After 3 Years of Very

Effective Teachers

Urban context matters

• Sheer size and scale—big city bureaucracies– CPS as an example

• Heterogeneity of cultures• Extremes of wealth and poverty• Cultural politics of urban school reform

Sets up schools that have high-quality human and material resources, and those that do not have such resources

Challenges to

Schools of Education

Challenges to Schools of Education

• High profile responsibilities• Responsibility beyond locus of control, e.g.,

Math and science secondary education Chicago Public Schools

• Responsibility without authority and resources Everyone knows best how to prepare teachers Proliferation of alternative providers

A Problem of Locus of Control

CPS requires its teachers to reside in Chicago.

UIC teacher candidates with Chicago residency frequently graduate from Chicago’s under-performing public high schools that are overwhelmingly populated by low-incomeBlack and Latino students.

These are the same students most likely to elect to teach in Chicago’s communities of color.

Such CPS graduates often arrive at UIC academically under-prepared and require remedial work in reading, writing, and math.

Without adequate academic and social support, such students do not pass remedial math and other courses, drop out of UIC, and are lost to the teaching profession.

The substantial numbers of White UIC graduates who teach in CPS often do not teach in the highest-need schools.

Demands on SOEs STATE REGUL.

INTASCNASDTEC

PUBLISHERSTEST MAKERS

ETS/NES

CIVIL RIGHTS GROUPS

NAACP

URBAN LEAGUE

AACTEAILACTE

ACSESULGCTECSCU

FOUNDATIONSCARNEGIE CORP.

FORDPEW/BELLSOUTH

ROCKEFELLERGATESNATIONAL

BOARD FOR PROFESSIONA

L TEACHING STANDARDS

STATE SYSTEMSNASH

K-16 INITIATIVESED TRUST

SPECIAL ORGANIZATIONS HOLMES/RENAISSANCE GOODLAD/STEP NCTAF PROJECT 30

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

OERI TITLE II/TQ INITIATIVE

C/U PRESIDENTSNASULGC

AASCUCICACE

ACCREDITATION AGENCIES

NCATE/TEAC

DISCIPLINARY GROUPS IRA NCTM NSTA

ACLS

TEACHER ORGANIZATIONS

NEA

AFT

BUSINESS LEADERS

Bus. Round Table/CB

MEDIA THINK TANKS FORDHAM INSTITUTE

HECHINGER INSTITUTE CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT

LOCAL SCHOOLS AASA

NSBA

STATE POLICYMAKERS

NGA SHEEO NCSL

ECS CCSO

RESEARCH ESTABLISHMENT AERA/CTP

SCHOOLS OF

EDUCATION

Taking stock of our own relationships with schools

UIC Teacher Prep

programs

Chicago area schools & communities

Feeder schools

Providing teachers

Field experience

Prof. development

• Where were we? Where weren’t we?• How are our relationships influenced by urban context?

Where were we? Where weren’t we?

• Well regarded provider of new K-12 teachers to CPS schools serving Latino students and suburban Cook County

• Good supplier to magnet and selective enrollment schools

• Scant supplier to the 56% of CPS schools serving predominantly African American schools

UIC’s “Approach”

UIC’s “Approach”

• Prioritizing the teachers Chicago needs most: From what teacher candidate wants to what system needs– Disciplinary shortage areas – Geographic shortage areas

• Moving from a “generic” model of teacher preparation to a model of preparation for teaching in Chicago’s neighborhood schools

Teacher Development Continuum

• Recruitment

• Professional preparation

• Induction and mentoring

• Continuing professional development

Recruitment

• Grow Your Own vs. Teach for America strategies– “My children” vs. “other people’s children” orientation– Not automatically excluding candidates with academic gaps– Articulation with community colleges– The importance of financial aid– Recruiting cohorts

Growing Our Own

• Value of meeting candidates where they are academically, instead of excluding them from teaching

• Remedial courses are program stoppers for many

• Example of alternative math course

Success in and after alternative math course

100%

60%52%

40%

40%

8%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Initial population After remedial After Math 140

Failed Math 140

Failed remedial

On-track

100%92%

79%

8%

8%

13%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Initial population After remedial After Math 140

Failed Math 140

Failed remedial

On-track

Pre-Elem Ed students taking traditional MATH 090 remedial course

Pre-Elem Ed students taking ED 194

Professional Preparation I

• Ensuring sufficient subject matter depth and flexibility, e.g., Natural Science courses

• Developing signature pedagogies that are developmentally appropriate and culturally responsive

• Integrating historically segregated curricula: Foundations and methods

• Including content typically excluded from teacher preparation curricula, e.g., SEL

Professional Preparation II

• Unpacking the “black box” of clinical practice in urban neighborhood schools– Fiercely contested territories: What makes a

good site for student teaching? What should field instruction look like? How much field instruction is optimal? Who are our field instructors? Classroom mentors? Who gets to decide all this?

• Serious threats to teacher ed status quo

UIC Teacher Prep

programs

Chicago area schools & communities

• From magnet schools and predominantly Latino schools to West Side African American schools

• From asking what are “best practice” placements to how best to prepare candidates for schools where teachers are most needed

• What makes a placement successful?: Starter list:– Teacher candidates who want to learn to teach “other

people’s children”– PD for cooperating teachers– PD for teacher educators– Principal and staff buy-in

Field placements

Induction and Mentoring

• Supporting Teachers Supporting Teaching (ST2) partnership with 12 CPS schools– Course for mentor teachers and new teachers– Site-based professional learning communities– In-classroom support for new teachers

• “Intergenerational” mentoring of UIC new teachers and prospective teachers

Continuing Professional Development

• Addressing human capital needs of the district, including leadership needs

• Whole school change processes – Differentiated instruction and Response To

Intervention (RTI) – Partnership READ standards-based change

process

• Demonstration schools

Monitoring Progress

Pre-service Placement matters... In where teachers take their first job

(FJ)...

FJ After a White ST Experience

FJ After a Latino ST Experience

FJ After an Ethnically Mixed ST Experience

FJ After an African American ST ExperienceSchool Type Breakdown for Ethnically Mixed School ST Experience Graduates

First Job Locations

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

CPSProfile

1998N=69

1999N=88

2000N=46

2001N=120

2002N=89

2003N=107

2004N=104

2005N=145

# not in database**

# in schools w ith no data

# in >90-100% White schools

# in >60-90% White schools

# in mixed schools <=60

# in >60-90% Latino schools

# in >90-100% Latino schools

# in >60-90% Afr Amer schools

# in >90-100% Afr Amer schools

*Source: UIC Council on Teacher Education (CTE) and Illinois Teacher Data Warehouse (TDW)

School Type Breakdown for White School ST Experience GraduatesFirst Job Locations

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

CPSProfile

1998N=42

1999N=25

2000N=7

2001N=22

2002N=15

2003N=26

2004N=33

2005N=36

# not in database**

# in schools w ith no data

# in >90-100% White schools

# in >60-90% White schools

# in mixed schools <=60

# in >60-90% Latino schools

# in >90-100% Latino schools

# in >60-90% Afr Amer schools

# in >90-100% Afr Amer schools

*Source: UIC Council on Teacher Education (CTE) and Illinois Teacher Data Warehouse (TDW)

School Type Breakdown for African American School ST Experience GraduatesFirst Job Locations

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

CPSProfile

1998N=11

1999N=6

2000N=10

2001N=24

2002N=24

2003N=22

2004N=28

2005N=39

# not in database**

# in schools w ith no data

# in >90-100% White schools

# in >60-90% White schools

# in mixed schools <=60

# in >60-90% Latino schools

# in >90-100% Latino schools

# in >60-90% Afr Amer schools

# in >90-100% Afr Amer schools

*Source: UIC Council on Teacher Education (CTE) and Illinois Teacher Data Warehouse (TDW)

School Type Breakdown for Latino School ST Experience GraduatesFirst Job Locations

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

CPSProfile

1998N=46

1999N=50

2000N=44

2001N=83

2002N=77

2003N=81

2004N=108

2005N=149

# not in database**

# in schools w ith no data

# in >90-100% White schools

# in >60-90% White schools

# in mixed schools <=60

# in >60-90% Latino schools

# in >90-100% Latino schools

# in >60-90% Afr Amer schools

# in >90-100% Afr Amer schools

*Source: UIC Council on Teacher Education (CTE) and Illinois Teacher Data Warehouse (TDW)

Secondary Education - Early Field Placements (ED330 & ED432)

1999 2007

School Location Breakdown for Secondary Mathematics (BST)Student Teacher Placements

0

5

10

15

20

25

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Year

Nu

mb

er

of

ST

Pla

cem

en

ts

Unknown

Private

Suburban

CPS Magnet

CPS Neigh

*Source: UIC Coucil on Teacher Education (CTE)

First Job Locations – 1998 to 2005

Elementary Ed – Undergrad ProgramElementary Ed – Grad. Program

First Job Locations – 1998 to 2005

MGM/MGS – Grad. ProgramElem. Project 29 – Grad. Program

Summing Up

Summing Up

• Significant, systemic change in business as usual

• Preparing committed high-quality teachers for key disciplinary and geographic shortage areas—teachers who stay

• Still learning how to support cooperating and mentor teachers better

How we’re doing it

• Staying the course on commitment to long-term goals

• Data-informed decision-making, especially Illinois Teacher Data Warehouse

• Strategic, opportunistic faculty hiring

• Significant external funding

• Keeping eye on district

Where to Place Student Teachers...

Performance Breakdown of CPS Schools by Ethnic/Racial Composition 2005

(Schools Separated by Percentile Rank among CPS Schools based on ISAT and ACT Scores)

0

0

0

0

4

48

52

0

2

4

0

7

67

80

0

10

17

15

9

80

131

0

21

43

35

6

31

136

15

67

20

6

6

23

137

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

60% White Schools (N=15)

Mixed Ethnicity Schools (N=100)

60% to 90% Latino Schools (N=84)

90% to 100% Latino Schools (N=56)

60% to 90% Afr. Amer. Schools (N=32)

90% to 100% Afr. Amer. Schools (N=249)

Profile of CPS Schools

<10th Percentile 10th to 25th Percentile 25th to 50th Percentile 50th to 75th Percentile 75th to 100th Percentile

What’s next?

UIC Teacher Prep

programs

Chicago area schools & communities

Feeder schools

Providing teachers

Field experience

Prof. development

• Strive for critical mass of UIC

educators in partner schools

with UIC-trained principals

• Find out how our teachers

affect student learning• Continue to engage our urban context and rethink

our practice