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Reforming Teacher Education

Something Old, Something New

by Sheila Nataraj Kirby, Jennifer Sloan McCombs, Heather Barney, Scott Naftel

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Teacher education has been subject to both scathing criticism and innumerable efforts designed to reform it or to save it from being dismantled. One of the latest and most well funded efforts aimed at teacher education reform is boldly titled Teachers for a New Era (TNE). Eleven colleges and universities of various types nationwide were selected to participate in TNE. The TNE initiative emphasizes evidence-based decisionmaking, close collaboration between education and arts and sciences faculty, and teaching as an academically taught clinical-practice profession. The RAND Corporation and the Manpower Research Demonstration Corporation followed and evaluated the TNE initiative from October 2002 to September 2005, conducting on-site interviews with TNE grantees. The authors place TNE in the larger context of teacher education reform and critically examine the process by which reform will result in highly qualified teachers capable of producing improvements in student learning. They also examine TNE’s contributions to the grantee institutions’ teacher education programs and organizational culture and assess the sustainability of TNE beyond the life of the grant.

Table of Contents

  • Chapter One

    Introduction

  • Chapter Two

    TNE in the Context of the Broader Teacher Education Reform Effort

  • Chapter Three

    TNE’s Theory of Change: Assumptions, Enabling Factors, and Potential Outcomes

  • Chapter Four

    Profiles of the TNE Institutions

  • Chapter Five

    Implementation Progress and Thoughts About Sustainability of TNE

  • Chapter Six

    Conclusions

  • Appendix A

    Teachers for a New Era Web Sites

  • Appendix B

    Implementation Progress: First Cohort of Grantees

  • Appendix C

    Second Cohort of Grantees: Sites Included in the National Evaluation

  • Appendix D

    Second Cohort of Grantees: Sites Not Included in the National Evaluation

  • Appendix E

    Florida A&M University

"The text provides a succinct overview of progress made by eight universities in implementing TNE [Teachers for a New Era] design principles. These include 'respect for an evidence base', 'engagement of Arts and Sciences faculty', and 'recognition of teaching as an academically taught, clinical-practice profession'… Readers will enjoy honest reporting and the hope that the text gives for the improvement of teaching and learning. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students through practitioners."

- CHOICE, March 2007

The research described in this report was conducted within RAND Education and supported by the Rockefeller, Ford, and Nellie Mae Education Foundations.

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