Prologue to

In 2004, a colleague asked me to write an article on training teachers exclusively for teaching at-risk populations. There are all kinds of current wrinkles that are being used to configure what different people believe will be effective training. The reason may be that we've been there and done that—having trained hundreds of teachers and aides and observed their performance in the classroom.

During the days of Follow Through I spent a lot of time in at-risk schools training teachers, supervisors, and trainers. We have used close to every training format conceivable. We trained one-on-one, through apprentice-mentor models, large group stand-up training, a wide variety of combinations of preservice, inservice, and classroom monitoring of performance. We conducted experiments about how teachers' and supervisors' behavior changed if we changed the teacher-performance form that the trainer left with the teacher after each classroom observation. We have trained aides to be teachers and have set up programs through which aides could become certified. We've trained high school students, older elementary-grade students, and peers to teach. And we have observed the results of these different combinations and formats. We know the average at-risk teacher very well. We know what her skill deficits are and how to remedy them effectively.

So when the colleague asked for a realistic training format that would yield graduates that would have the experience, skill, and knowledge needed to be effective with at-risk kids, I said, "sure." And I did. Understand that for me, a realistic training format is not one that panders to some regulations and practices that currently exist. It is one that recognizes that these limitations exist but that they must go if we are make serious progress. So long as we are constrained by some of these requirements, we will continue to fail. It is one that addresses the issues. And it was received by some policy-and-management types as a fantasy. Trust me, it's not. The plan that is outlined in this paper would work, and work very well. Yes, it flies in the face of current procedures, but that's the point. The current procedures are the cause of the problem. Teachers are naïve when they become certified only because the institution and the state that contributed to their certification did not take any serious steps to prepare them for the job they would be expected to do. So long as regulations, policies, traditions, and laws are as they are, we're going to continue seeing unprepared people receiving licenses to teach kids who need the most sophisticated teachers.

So the plan is perfectly irreverent, and the policy-and-management critics are probably right about the main tenet of the plan, which is that teachers do not have to receive a degree to be certified to teach. Sure, it would be nice if a college or university would award degrees for people who went through a strict training program, not one that consists mostly in information that is perfectly irrelevant to doing a superior job in the classroom. But where is that college or university? Most of them are blessed by agencies that are supposed to verify that the instruction is excellent. Unfortunately, these agencies are just the other side of perfectly primitive.

We should not have to tiptoe around with "charter schools" or weird alternative schools. The public schools are there to serve the public. Part of that public is composed of kids who are seriously behind and that need careful teaching. If it can't be done in the public schools, it is not worth trying to keep the public schools. And that does not mean turning it over to some kind of pretender management outfit like The Edison Project. It means reconstituting practices so that public education meets the obligation implied by its name.

This is not to say that the outline I provide for training teachers is the best way to go. Right now, I can't think of a better way, but I'm certain that if we tried to implement the blueprint, we would find more graceful ways of designing some of the structures and performing some of the functions. Anyhow, I'm not going to try to get the paper published even though I know damn well it would be economically feasible, and it would train people from the areas that are being serviced, and it would have a singular advantage over all the plans that are currently viewed as serious alternatives—it would produce highly competent graduates who would not only outperform current first year teachers, but also most of better highly experienced teachers. No kidding.