The Plan
The Process
Conceptual Framework
Participation
Evaluation
Professional Development
Budgets
Changing Institutional Structures
Longitudinal Study Opportunity
Best Practices
Documentation
Recruitment and Retention
Technology
Diversity
Technical Assistance

• The proposed University-School Teacher Education Partnerships may well be one of the largest and most unique state level reforms in teacher education in the nation. There will be many lessons learned from the many people involved in this complex initiative. Is there a plan or intention to carefully document, evaluate, and disseminate the outcomes of this systemic reform as it proceeds? This is an opportunity and perhaps a professional obligation that should not be missed.
  
  
• The written Proposal and Implementation Plan for University-School Teacher Education Partnerships, approved by the UNC Board of Governors, are conceptually and organizationally sound documents. The grassroots nature of this 15 campus teacher education reform is highly commendable. However, what is the plan for keeping this important self-initiated statewide reform moving in the directions outlined in the Proposal? Without such a plan, local improvements at specific campuses may be achieved, but will that satisfy the systemic nature of the reform described in the Proposal?

The Process

• The Deans' Council for Teacher Education and their partners in the public schools and in business are to be congratulated for thoughtfully designing a process for achieving the goals and objectives outlined in their Proposal and Implementation Plan. Is a process in place for linking the Partnership governing boards across the state which could assure that the systemic goals for the network are achieved? If not, how will the systemic potential of this reform be achieved?
  
  
• The apparent support of the University-School Teacher Education Partnerships by the North Carolina General Assembly, the UNC Board of Governors, and the past and present leadership of the University system is laudable and absolutely essential to "staying the course" on a reform as large scale and long term as this. What plan or process is in place or anticipated to help assure the continued support of these key stakeholders?

Conceptual Framework

• Even though most Partnerships proposals alluded to a belief system that guides their programs, the conceptual framework for each partnership needs to be made more explicit; it is not clearly linked to the partnership goals and objectives. Because North Carolina is an NCATE approval state, each institution has undoubtedly fashioned a very strong conceptual piece on the nature of their professional education programs. There was less of this in the proposals than might have been expected given the assumption that such conceptual work has been done at each site. However, in the absence of more thematic, vision and core value development, the proposals did not cohere as they might have had they been organized around these institutionally unique statements. [Note: The UNC colleges/schools/departments of education are all NCATE approved and as such have explicit conceptual frameworks to guide their programs. The Deans' Council on Teacher Education discussed the value of describing the conceptual framework in the Partnership plans, but decided not to include them in order to reduce the volume of the plans. Perhaps in retrospect they should have been included.]

Participation

• Proposals do not include collaboration between institutions of higher education, even between institutions in close proximity.
  
  
• While most partnership proposals reflected participation in varying degrees from important stakeholders (such as faculty from education and the arts and sciences, teachers, administrators, parents, business leaders and other community representatives), it was not always clear that the voice of teachers especially was "authentically" represented. In each partner district, who speaks for the teachers as a collective, in the same sense that the superintendent speaks for the district as a whole? What is the appropriate proportion of teacher participation, etc.? These are issues that should be attended to directly, if not consistently across projects.
  
  
• Faculty involvement in the schools is not clearly articulated and the implications for institutional change is not evident.
  
  
• Throughout the proposals, school based participants in the partnerships appeared to be "volunteer" their time to these efforts. There doesn't appear to be a basis for considering the work of those teachers and staff willing to become engaged in this important work as anything other than "take it out of your hide." What statewide structures could be put in place to reinforce the importance of collaboration? For instance, should the state seek to recognize or "license" mentor teachers? Should the state adjust the pay schedule to reflect the importance of partnering, and directly rewarding participation through a salary increment? [Note: The UNC Deans' Council has proposed using some of their Partnership funds for this purpose. The Council has also advocated paying classroom teachers who mentor and coach student teaching interns for a full year the same pay as for mentors to first year teachers.]
  
  
• In general, the preceding point leads to a discussion of necessary policy development at the state level around partnerships, new roles for teachers, alternative tenure and promotion criteria in universities, shared budgets between K-12 and postsecondary structures, a system of P-16 councils, etc. (like Georgia is experimenting with), and other related policy issues. The partnership network of l5 institutions could take this issue on as a collective such that at the culmination of the two-year project, the group could be prepared to make appropriate policy recommendations.

Evaluation

• In general, the evaluation plans were underdeveloped. Most of the plans raised familiar questions and proposed measurable variables common to teacher education, but not particularly directed to outcomes. Most importantly, evaluation designs have to point toward the complexities of establishing linkages between teacher behavior and pupil performance. While the INTASC, PRAXIS, and NBPTS standards and measures lead us in that direction, much more work needs to be done. North Carolina is by no means alone here. But in order to make the kind of contribution that this statewide partnership initiative is capable of, the evaluation models should help push the edge of the assessment envelop.
  
  
• There is little evidence that institutions of higher education are concerned about how to present evidence that there is value added when they become involved in the school site. While it is assumed that the partnership idea adds value to both schools of education and K-12 schools, what specific enhancements should parents, pupils, community and the larger education community expect to see when collaboration occurs? To the degree we can make the value added more explicit, more cooperation, then funding will follow.
  
  
• Since the intent of this project is to revisit these sites a year hence, it might be a helpful exercise amongst the Review Team and the Partnerships to speculate now on what we'd all like to see a year from now. The more tangible the discussion, the better. As a result of what gets said, we may better inform the kind of formative evaluation data that would be useful to retrieve by next year, and the effects we intend in two years. This exercise might also suggest that next year's review include site visits. [Note: This is what the Deans' Council proposed as part of the National Review Team process over the next two years.]

Professional Development

• Most of the proposals clearly embrace the general notion of the continuum of teacher development and the importance of improving practice across this continuum, as put forward by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. However, as the proposals are reviewed they are typically not strong across all dimensions of the continuum. This might be expected; that is, that certain institutions take the lead on particular elements of the continuum. But it should be clear either that each partnership is expected to be innovative on each phase of the continuum, or that certain institutions will feature particular phases. What should not be assumed is that because an institution is committed to the continuum, that it has in place a strong response to all phases of activity. Particular strengths will likely surface in the individual reviews.
  
  
• Relatedly, it was difficult at times to determine how aspects of the continuum of teacher professional development come together. How does the preservice program link to the next critical phase of teacher development, namely induction? Further, how do we align institutional responsibility across the continuum; that is, help higher education take more ownership and responsibility for induction and K-12 school personnel assume more direct responsibility and involvement in preservice education, etc.?

Budgets

• In general, the budgets proposed by the individual projects lacked the kind of narrative that would really clearly explicate the intent of the separate expenditures. Even so, most of the expenditures were typical of the kinds of resource needs education schools have traditionally sought; paying for a part-time staff person to run the partnership, recruiting a graduate student to do background research, paying a cooperating teacher's stipend. Alternatively, the budgets did not reflect innovative new ways to recruit teachers to serve in leadership roles, to assist in reorganizing teachers' use of time so that job-embedded staff development could occur, or any evidence that proposals really provided for new roles across the partnership that had not been tried before with limited success. Budgets kept expenditures on campus, more than allocating a shared amount to clinical schools and participating school districts. Again, the proposals appeared generally short on risk-oriented activities and expenditures. In general, the proposals lacked a sense of boldness which ultimately gets reflected in how partnerships propose to spend the precious resources provided for this partnership initiative.

Changing Institutional Structures

• Most of the partnership activities were pitched at the micro level; that is, changing the way we place students, the role of mentors, the nature of in-service. Relatively little was referenced relative to changing institutional structures, like finding more time in the school day for professional development, paying more attention to the placement of beginning teachers in reduced load assignments, or changing the nature of professorial responsibilities. These are the kinds of directions that could likely have a more lasting effect on the way teacher development is conducted than lots of smaller steps that may not add up to significant institutional change.

Longitudinal Study Opportunity

• These partnerships present a powerful opportunity to study the nature of program interventions longitudinally over a broad array of program variations. Each of the partnership proposals posed different ways of conducting programs, around different belief systems, toward different end. What a wonderful way to begin to understand the effects of each route, the strengths and weaknesses of alliterative approaches, and the impact of these variations on teacher and pupil learning. At a minimum' some kind of statewide survey study could be conducted, with site-specific case studies to follow.

Best Practices

• The identification of best/effective practices and their application to teaching and learning is generally not clearly identified.

Documentation

• Apparently a model for school-university partnerships has been discussed and proposed by the deans of education, and there was certainly evidence that some partnerships were employing some variation of this model. There was also considerable variation in the application of the model. Over time, the kind of documentation and commitment evidenced through model "charters" may be a way of institutionalizing these relationships. Thus more elaborate charter models, like the one put forward from some of the Model Clinical Teaching Programs are appropriate. Again, a close review finds that even the charters or resolutions that were included were not uniformly appropriately signed.

Recruitment and Retention

• With regard to the issue of teacher recruitment and retention, it may be that no amount of innovation at the partnership level to recruit a more qualified and diverse teaching force will speak as loudly as changing the working conditions of teachers to make day to day operations in schools more conducive to the work of adult professionals. A host of issues undoubtedly come to mind here, so illustrations are not necessary. The partnerships must simply keep their eye on a larger solution that lies in the ways we think about schooling and the role of education professionals as they serve within those schools.

Technology

• Some cautions about technology are in order. First, to "connect" a state education system from K-12 through higher education to the information highway is a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Once a state falls behind, which most are, many resources are required to catch up. Thus it is not surprising to find these partnerships struggling with technology upgrades. Their expectations are, by and large, low as well, i.e., thinking that putting one computer in each classroom in a Partnership clinical school is an accomplishment, when we should be talking about 6-10 computers per classroom, etc. We caution that using resources from the partnership initiative to solve the technology gap may be throwing pennies at a big problem (like technology upgrade) and taking precious pennies away from a problem that could be addressed with less resource intensity (like partnership development).

Diversity

• The diversity strategies are not clearly linked to the partnership plans, the budget, or committee structure.

Technical Assistance

• Finally, the issue of technical assistance arises. As the state becomes more familiar with the efforts across the 15 sites, and their strengths and weaknesses, successes and challenges, how might the state provide technical assistance within and from outside the network to enable significant change as proposed by the partnerships? Seeking additional state or foundation funds might be one way; a 1% set-aside from the total existing pool might be another. A system of institutional partnering where one institution is strong in a particular area assists another partnership in need of help is another. It would be helpful to address this issue now, as a collective, so that going into these partnerships, participants know what to expect with regard to technical assistance.

---