Practical Ideas on Teacher Ed Reform

A few weeks after the election Gov. Scott Walker spoke about changing the way we fund pubic K-12 and higher education. It's the usual tough talk about "outcomes" with on comment in particular that has turned some heads.

"In higher education, that means not only degrees, but are young people getting degrees in jobs that are open and needed today -- not just the jobs that the universities want to give us, or degrees that people want to give us."

Part of me could go on and on about where this could lead - plus there are no specifics behind this statement, but I just want to focus my mental capital on things I know about - Schools of Education. 

What we don't need anymore of are graduates who don't have a robust background in educating all learners. I recently ran into a former student who is now 21. He proudly told me he was getting an education degree to teach social studies. My response was "That's great! What do you think about getting your special ed certification too?" He told me he was thinking about that and I encouraged him to seriously consider it. The perspectives and experiences it would give in working with diverse learners would carry over into any job in education. I wish I had done my undergraduate work in that field. I would have been a more mature educator at a younger age because of it.

With differentiation, personalization, self-paced competency-based education being some of the current trends (I don't think sit in your rows, shut up and do the odds is ever coming back...) we need every single SoE graduate to know how to work with different types of learners from day one. State-level leadership (DPI especially) can't just keep making comments on what we should be doing in public ed and not work to ensure future generations of teachers have that skill set right away. A Vision for Digital Learning in WI that focuses on personalizing education and meeting the needs of all students is great, but we need some action.

The basic building blocks of an undergraduate experience need to morph and rotate around meeting all student's needs - not just one 3-credit class on it. What I'm going to look into next is what DPI requires from SoE and what we'll need to target to take out of undergraduate requirements - because with student teaching, is already a 5-year degree.

It's easy to complain about what politicos pontificate about. I think it's more practical to offer ideas that will work that fit in the box they're trying to create for their own uses.