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Eugenia Garcia, dean of the Mary Lou Fulton
College of Education leads ASU's efforts to strengthen eductional
partnerships with K-12 schools.
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CLASS ACT
ASU programs tackle education's "revolving
door" problem
By Melissa Crytzer Fry
When school superintendent Earl Pettit
was faced with 45 teacher vacancies for the 2005-2006 school year
and had filled only 29 of them by mid-July, he was running out
of options.
As the superintendent of Whiteriver Unified School District, a public school
system located on the tribal lands of the White Mountain Apache Reservation
in eastern Arizona, Pettit is no stranger to staffing difficulties. Each
year, he expects to lose nearly one-third of his 170-person staff.
?To fill those 45 vacancies, we offered
110 contracts, and ended up with only 29 taking a job,? says Pettit. ?We
were still 16 teachers short. Our last resort was the Philippines, where
we finally recruited and filled the positions.?
Pettit?s challenge isn?t unique; teacher recruitment and retention
are chronic problems nationwide. According to statistics from Teacher Magazine,
46 percent of all teachers leave the profession within five years. Other
reports show teachers vacating the classroom at a rate of 50 percent by
only their third year of teaching. The U.S. Department of Education supports
those alarming statistics, predicting a need for more than two million
new teachers in the next decade.
"Despite a growing crisis cross-country, the problem has achieved epidemic
proportions in Arizona ? especially in low-income and typically low-performing
inner-city and rural districts,? says Eugene Garcia, vice president for
educational school partnerships and dean of the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education. ?Teachers
are the most critical individuals who address our children. We can credit our
democracy ? our overall competitiveness globally ? at least partially
to individuals who are in those classrooms. If they aren't there, we will have
serious problems as a society.?
The reasons for the shortage are plentiful. Among them are Arizona?s
population boom, a surge of retiring teachers, new federal and state regulations
and accountability standards, lackluster salaries, lack of housing options
and teacher mentoring support in rural districts, and even population spikes
in neighboring states that often lure Arizona teachers away.
Despite the challenges Arizona faces, however, administrators like Pettit
are finding relief from teacher preparation and induction programs administered
by ASU at each of its campuses.
Pettit is participating in a program operated through the College of Teacher
Education and Leadership at ASU?s West campus. Called PDS TENET,
the program is an offshoot of the university?s already-successful
Professional Development School (or PDS) collaborative that originated
in Phoenix urban elementary districts in 1999.
?A PDS is essentially a ?grow-your-own? new teacher preparation
program for the partner district,? explains Scott Ridley, associate professor
in elementary education who oversees the TENET program. ?Students ? stay
in their community and become teachers.?
With TENET (Teacher Education Network of Excellence Through Technology),
Pettit?s likelihood of attracting and retaining qualified teachers
increases each year his district participates. In the fall, he expects
a cohort of more than 20 TENET students to arrive in Whiteriver.
?We anticipate a higher retention rate of the teachers from the PDS,? says
Pettit of the program that encourages full immersion in the school?s culture.
Students log more than 200 hours in the classroom, whether they choose the 18-month
fast-track program or the 24-month working-track option.
?Doing the training onsite with the school through the entire training
process, I think creates an outreach to the community. It really allows people
in the local population who wouldn?t otherwise become teachers the opportunity
to get their credentials.?
Through the partnership, funded through a $10 million Title II No Child
Left Behind grant, ASU provides a full-time ASU faculty member who teaches
onsite, oversees student-teaching assignments and assists in providing
professional development programs for the district?s teachers.
The program also includes Content Academies, a series of professional development
graduate-level courses taught through interactive videoconferencing technology. ?We
offer content classes in reading, math and science,? explains Ridley. ?In
the PDS, students do much more practical teaching, but we also know through
our experience in the urban PDS settings that their content knowledge is
weak.?
More than 250 teachers have participated in the Content Academies, virtually
connecting with other PDS teachers and instructors from seven districts
across the state.
Included in those districts are urban PDS schools such as Phoenix?s
Madison School District, where assistant superintendent Pam Santesteban
says she, too, sees serious shortages. Her district ? like many across
Arizona ? has an increased need for special education, math and science
teachers.
?We, however, have a built-in applicant pool with the PDS program,? says
Santesteban. Her district is so pleased with the PDS program that it entered
into its second five-year agreement in 2005. The urban PDS program is a 12-month
fast-track program that places students in the classroom for four five-week rotations
in the district?s primary, intermediate and middle school classrooms before
they even begin student teaching.
Students complete intense seven-hour days in the classrooms until 3:30
p.m., followed by another five hours of college class work onsite until
9 p.m. each evening.
?Rather than having a brand new teacher coming in from the outside, we
have a very proficient teacher who is extremely confident about having his or
her own classroom and who knows the rules, procedures, people and systems of
the school already,? adds Santesteban.
The Madison District hired 14 of the 22 student teachers who participated
in the PDS program last year. ?We didn?t want these folks getting
out of our sight. They spent an intensive year with us and could hit the
ground running,? she says.
Nearly 100 students currently participate in ASU?s PDS pre-service
education programs across the state.
An additional benefit is that PDS-prepared new teachers regularly outperform
new teachers prepared in other teacher education programs, says Ridley,
adding that they also exhibit higher retention rates when they enter the
profession.
Each of ASU?s campuses offer programs that exceed national standards
for hours of pre-service experience in the classroom. But what about the
first- or second-year teacher who is already in the classroom ? grappling
with discipline techniques, lesson plans and time management? How do Arizona
schools retain those new teachers when the law of averages predicts they
may remain in the profession for only three to five years?
Since 1999, ASU?s BEST (Beginning Educator Support Team) Program
has made great strides in addressing the nagging issue of teacher retention.
BEST provides comprehensive support for beginning teachers, mentors within
the same school who assist beginning teachers, and for second-year or new-to-the-district
teachers.
For Jody Leeds ?82 B.A., the BEST Program provided just the guidance
she needed after a 20-year hiatus from teaching while she raised her children. ?The
teaching field has changed dramatically in 20 years,? admits Leeds,
who is once again a first-year teacher, teaching sixth grade at Scottsdale-based
Yavapai Elementary. ?The BEST Program ... It gave me the self confidence
to get through a very stressful first year and re-affirmed my abilities
and skills.?
Support to new teachers is provided through sample lesson plans, instructional
strategies and student management tips. The hallmark of the program, however,
is the one-to-one interaction of new teachers with seasoned professionals.
While full-time teacher mentors are available for day-to-day support, visitation
coaches from the district regularly observe new teachers in the classroom
and provide individualized coaching. They also lead a series of BEST seminars
and help teachers develop portfolios that showcase their teaching abilities.
?Part of retention is linked directly to a teacher?s competence ? them
feeling a sense of self advocacy, a sense of fulfillment in their role of teacher,? says
BEST Program Director Sharon Kortman ?86 B.A., ?89 M.Ed., ?96
Ed.D. ?The more we can come alongside them, support them in that role,
and help them see their growth and their competence, the more that directly links
to their confidence. Soon, then, you see them taking on more leadership roles
and looking into the future, and all of the sudden they are staying.?
Indeed, they are staying. From 2002 to 2004, 97 percent of beginning teachers
in Arizona BEST partnering districts returned to the teaching profession.
The program today exists in 28 Arizona districts in Coconino, Maricopa,
Mohave and Pinal counties and in 79 districts nationwide.
In a survey of more than 2,000 beginning teachers from all states who participated
in BEST from 2000 to 2005, nearly 95 percent reported that the program
had a positive impact on their decision to remain in teaching.
A recent $50 million gift from alumni Ira and Mary Lou Fulton ?75
B.A. will ensure the continued support of mentorship and support programs
for novice teachers. The gift, the largest ever given by individuals to
a U.S. college of education, resulted in the May 9 renaming of ASU?s
College of Education as the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education.
?About one-third of the Fultons? gift will be related to teacher
production and retention,? says Garcia. ?It will allow us to continue
to do research and development about teacher retention and to develop different
prototypes based on BEST principles.?
While teacher shortages account for significant deficits throughout the
nation, administrative shortages also share the spotlight.
One ASU master?s degree-granting program, LEE, the Leadership for
Educational Entrepreneurs program at the West campus, blends courses in
education and business to support administrators in the charter school
arena.
With 499 charter schools serving more than 86,000 students, Arizona has
more charter schools than any other state. Co-directors of the LEE program,
Eleanor Perry and Nancy Haas ?85 Ph.D., agree that being a leader
in the charter school movement means more choices for parents, but that
it also increases the need for additional teachers and administrators.
Says Haas, ?With every school that opens, whether it?s a charter
or a district school, it creates a greater number of teachers and administrators
needed.?
LEE has proven a valuable tool in curbing the charter school administrator
shortage through its current 18-month program that features a combined
onsite and online interdisciplinary curriculum, internship opportunities,
action research projects, and one-on-one mentoring relationships among
educators and businesspeople across the nation. At the completion of the
program, students earn an M.Ed. degree with specialization in educational
entrepreneurship.
Perry and Haas believe that one reason the administrator shortage is on
the rise is because of the changing roles that administrators must play
in today?s schools ? charter or district. Today?s administrators,
they say, need to understand the full-service school, a concept the LEE
program addresses
from the start of the curriculum.
?We?re creating global thinkers now, as far as school administrators
go, because they?re actually the conductors of the orchestra,? adds
Perry. ?They?re the ones who are expected to make sure all these
programs happen in a seamless way. We didn?t prepare principals for the
full-service school model 20 years ago. But we are now.?
Despite the added responsibility, many administrators seem to thrive on
the challenge. LEE graduate Gloria Proo ?05 M.Ed., school director
of Pima Vocational High School in Tucson, is one of them. She believes
a lot of the additional stress that administrators face ? which often
leads to poor retention - can be solved through time management skills
and a renewed management style.
?LEE helped me do that,? adds Proo. ?I?ve been an administrator
for 12 years, and I very much needed to look at my management skills in a different
way.? Proo, who admits to tackling many projects solo before LEE, credits
her action research experience for increased staff decision-making.
The LEE program, initially established through a competitive $750,000 grant
from the U.S. Department of Education and sustained through another $2.7
million grant that ends next fall, will continue to be offered at ASU as
a permanent specialization within the M.Ed. program.
Retention rates of administrators who complete the program are testament
to its success. Virtually all graduates have chosen to remain in the charter
school administrative profession, and 40 percent report receiving promotions
upon graduation.
ASU, through myriad programs at each of its campuses, is making a sizeable
dent in the state?s teacher and administrator shortage.
In fact, the University is producing the greatest number of teachers among
all of Arizona?s state universities.
?Four years ago, ASU decided to increase our production of teachers by
50 percent,? says Garcia. ?We have met that and are up to 1,500 teachers
this year. We?ve done that consciously and systematically. In another five
years, we want to produce 2,000 to 2,500.?
Past statistics illustrate that the future goal is highly achievable. Between
the 1990-2000 and 2004-2005 academic years, teachers certified as undergraduates
and post-baccalaureates by all ASU?s campuses grew from 996 to 1442,
a 45 percent increase.
Renewed interest from second-career professionals who are returning to
teaching are also making the increased numbers possible.
At the Tempe, Polytechnic and West campuses, self-paced post-baccalaureate
programs and master?s-plus-certification programs for individuals
who already have a bachelor?s degrees continue to see spikes in enrollment.
At the West campus alone, an additional 150 students are expected to enroll
in the MAC master?s-plus-certification program next year.
? These programs help us get some people teaching who otherwise would have
had a very difficult time,? says Joseph Ryan, interim dean of education
at West. ?Without programs like these, people with bachelor?s degrees
would have to go back and basically do another bachelor?s degree.?
Although ASU is helping teachers and administrators earn their credentials
in less time, the University?s teaching standards and requirements
for certification remain rigorous. Nationwide, ASU is ranked among the
top 10 in curriculum and instruction, proving its strength
in preparing teachers for an ever-changing educational landscape. |
