Posted on 03/11/2002 7:29:51 AM PST by summer
States Give Community Colleges a Role in Educating Teachers
As the institutions offer degrees -- including four-year ones -- questions of quality arise
By JAMILAH EVELYN
Faced with a projected shortage of teachers over the next decade, at least 20 states are turning to community colleges to help identify and train prospective elementary- and secondary-school educators.
In one of the most ambitious efforts, Florida's St. Petersburg College received legislative approval last summer to begin offering bachelor's degrees in teacher education; other two-year colleges are expected to win similar approval.
Also last summer, Maryland officials began allowing community colleges to award associate degrees in teaching, allowing students who go on to four-year institutions to receive full credit for their work.
In other states, community colleges offer an increasing number of teacher-education courses and are fine-tuning articulation agreements with universities to make sure that the credits will transfer.
Advocates say community colleges are well situated to play a bigger role in teacher preparation. They already have a track record: Four out of 10 teachers have completed at least a portion of their undergraduate math and science courses at community colleges. And the two-year colleges tend to have higher minority enrollments than do four-year institutions -- an important statistic given that education experts are calling for a more diverse teaching force.
Recruiting New Teachers, a Boston-based nonprofit group, found in a May 2000 survey that 5.5 percent of community-college freshman say they are interested in elementary-school teaching careers, and 3.5 percent in secondary-school teaching. That interest could result in more than 500,000 new teachers over the next decade -- some 25 percent of the total that experts say will be needed.
In addition to serving a public need, the states' new programs also may help community-college budgets. "Let's face it: If there is a big shortage of teachers, then that means there will be big efforts to recruit students into these programs," says Thomas R. Bailey, director of the Institute on Education and the Economy at Columbia University's Teachers College.
"Lots of additional students, in many states, would mean additional state funding."
But some experts worry that too much focus will be placed on signing up students rather than developing good programs.
"The notion of community colleges' doing free-standing teacher preparation is new, so right now we are asking a lot of questions," says Penelope M. Earley, vice president for governmental relations and issue analysis at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
The group's Board of Directors, which discussed the topic in a meeting last month, is especially concerned about allowing two-year colleges to enter the field at a time when national standards for teachers are being raised. "How will community colleges ensure that these new teachers will be quality teachers?" Ms. Earley asks.
The most controversial approach is Florida's plan to allow community colleges to award bachelor's degrees. As it is, St. Petersburg College for years has jointly run a teacher-education program with the University of South Florida and Saint Leo University. This year, 450 of St. Petersburg's students are enrolled in the program.
But officials of local elementary and secondary schools, still lacking enough teachers, presented legislators with a request for St. Petersburg to create a program of its own.
"This is something that we were asked to do because the needs just simply weren't being met," says Carol C. Copenhaver, the college's senior vice president for educational and student services.
St. Petersburg, which will begin offering the four-year bachelor's-degree program this fall, plans to hire at least six additional full-time teacher-education professors, most of whom will be required to hold Ph.D.'s, as well as several adjunct professors. New courses for the junior and senior year include pedagogy and upper-level classes in teaching science and math. St. Petersburg is seeking accreditation for the new program from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
When St. Petersburg sought the authority to offer bachelor's degrees, its neighbor, the University of South Florida, lodged no objection, although Ms. Copenhaver says there may have been a few "misgivings."
"There were faculty [at the university] who had some thoughts about whether community colleges should be offering this bachelor's degree," she says. "But in the end, I think they realized that because of the severe shortage, there was more work than they could do alone."
Other two-year colleges in the state -- including Miami-Dade Community College, which now has its own school of education -- have applied for the same authority. Observers say they will probably receive approval as early as next year.
Great Basin College, in Nevada, also offers a bachelor's degree in elementary education, accredited by the Northwest Association of Colleges and Schools. The college is collaborating with five local school districts to provide its students with clinical and field experience.
Meanwhile, in Maryland, state officials believe that they can entice more students to pursue teaching careers by allowing them to make a seamless transition from a community college to a four-year institution. The state assembled a committee in the fall of 1999 to explore requirements for a new degree, an associate of arts in teaching. As of last summer, Maryland still had 10,000 openings for elementary- and secondary-school teachers.
The new curriculum mirrors that offered by four-year colleges in the first two years, including courses on educational psychology and special education, theory-based courses that are unusual for a community college. Students also get field experience at local schools. All of the coursework is transferable to state universities for students who graduate with at least a 2.75 grade-point average and who pass the first part of a three-part state exam for teachers.
Any community college seeking to offer the degree must follow standards set by the Maryland Higher Education Commission. "You have to submit your curriculum, the credentials of the people who teach, and how your institution is going to support this," says Maureen L. McDonough, who heads the teacher-education program at the Community College of Baltimore County.
"Many of the community colleges have been in this business for a long time, really. Now we're just making it more coherent and more rigorous in some ways."
So far, 6 of the state's 16 community colleges have been allowed to offer the degrees; 2 others have applications pending.
In other states, including Arizona, California, and Texas, two-year institutions are adding education courses and hammering out articulation agreements with public universities.
Elsewhere, community-college officials are making arrangements for universities to offer bachelor's degrees on the two-year campuses. George W. Little, chairman of the Board of Trustees of Sandhills Community College, in North Carolina, says that model is useful in rural areas, many of which "are some of the hardest hit when it comes to both teacher shortages and lack of access to four-year degrees."
Officials representing the state's universities, two-year colleges, and public schools have held a series of meetings to facilitate such arrangements, he notes. North Carolina officials also are considering allowing community colleges to certify prospective teachers who already have bachelor's degrees.
"We've had a lot of layoffs in our state in the last year," says Mr. Little, who is also chairman of the governing board of the Association of Community College Trustees. "Community colleges are already playing a role in helping retrain laid-off workers. Why not let community colleges direct these people where they're really needed?"
Many two-year institutions are already doing just that. Rio Salado College, part of the Maricopa County Community College District, in Phoenix, has an online teacher-certification program that people with bachelor's degrees can complete in one or two years.
Still other community colleges are offering professional-development courses for current teachers. Ohio lawmakers passed a law five years ago that allows school-district superintendents to accept professional-development credits that teachers have earned at community colleges. That has meant new business for, among other places, Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland.
"There are so many teachers who aren't credentialed in their fields," says Sunil Chand, Cuyahoga's executive vice president for academic affairs. "If this is one way we can help out, we are happy to do it."
Officials at a handful of community colleges have formed the National Association for Community College Teacher Education Programs as a clearinghouse and advocate for the efforts going on in many states.
Organizers say they will seek new members at conventions of the American Association of Community Colleges and the League for Innovation in the Community College.
Fred Gaskin, chancellor of the Maricopa district, which has helped organize the new group's meetings, says the association will try to dispel the myth that community colleges aren't equipped to handle teacher education.
"There's great irony here," he says. "Our faculty are well-versed in the art of teaching -- arguably even more so than university faculty. So we think we know a little bit about this."
Most of our public school teachers are pitiful and cannot put together a paragraph without grammatical or spelling errors.
The teachers schools churn out a leftist, collectivist, and victim mentality such that the teachers routintely become card-carrying members of the National Education Association, the most vile, leftist, and anti-American union in the nation.
Our teachers are profound economic illiterates who have not a clue as to how wealth is generated in a capitalistic, free market system. And yet we entrust the education of our children to these illiterate goons.
With very few exceptions, any one who does not consider private schools, religious schools, or homeschooling for his/her children is sadly mistaken about the reality of public schools.
Republicans don't have to decide who they will be when they wake up in the morning. At least they are genuine.
Proud to be a pubbie! Folks, get your Jeb bumper stickers at jeb.org or a yard sign, etc. The bumper stickers are FREE - I don't know about the yard signs.
Competition for the complacent 4-year college factory PC teacher outlet, ping. (^:
I think that many people don't realize how few Americans are involved in their childs education. They prefer the government take care of it; they don't want the responsibility. This leads to further failure of our educational system. In the end, there will be calls for complete federalization to solve the problem. What do you then think the outcome will be? From a conservative teacher's perspective; just look at how the fed's have their teeth into all aspects of education. I really believe that it's all about control and the future.
Back to community colleges. In my state, the academics (ed dept) at state university control development and implementation of all ed programs. They work hand-in-hand with the repub majority of legislature. These academics & the NEA control all apsects of the certification process. Their entire direction is to retain power over the system. You still must complete all of their requirements and jump through all of their hoops if you want to teach. They will never permit that power to leave their hands. It's offensive but reality. I have seen these academics repeatedly squash attempts to expand the ed programs at branch campuses.
Add all the social/behavioral problems (guns,fights,drugs,issues of respect, lack of parental concern, ect) that teachers face daily; and the fact that teachers can usually earn 2-3 times their salary in the private sector I don't see people rushing into education.
I sure do wish more conservatives would open their eyes and become teachers though.
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