MACTE commends the Board of Teaching on your ambitious draft goals for this year focusing on teacher effectiveness, specifically recruitment, licensure requirements, and retention. MACTE wants to collaborate with you in working toward those goals. We will be commenting in more detail on the individual goals in the future, but we want to make several general statements today.

 

With regard to the recruitment goal MACTE appreciates the Board's recognition of the tension between encouraging additional candidates to enter teaching and maintaining standards for high quality. Many of our institutions offer programs that provide straightforward pathways for working professionals to transition into teaching. One of the issues under entry requirements that concerns MACTE is ensuring quality while providing opportunities for candidates who are English Language Learners. Like you we want to see more teachers of color enter the field. We are in great need of good role models for our K-12 students of color.

 

MACTE has been an active partner on the task forces examining licensure requirements over the past two years. The process has not always been easy, but we look forward to continuing in that role on the new special education task force. We are eager for the rulemaking process to begin, for higher education to be involved, and for higher education to begin curriculum changes to reflect the new standards. As the Board examines teacher licensure and the alignment with K-12 standards, we look forward to the results. We are ready to explore with you such innovations in licensure fields as immersion and online licensure. Already several of our institutions have programs beginning in these fields.

 

Finally, MACTE recognizes the value of high quality induction programs as a means of retaining new teachers and helping these teachers to achieve success with their students. We realize that to fully achieve this goal for every new teacher, legislative action and funding are needed. In fact, MACTE has had support for induction and mentoring programs as a major component of our legislative platform for the past two sessions. We want to work with the Board to advocate for high quality induction programs.

 

Coincidently, this year's focus for MACTE is based on the theme, "Restoring Minnesota's Preeminence as a National Leader in Education." Throughout the year we will showcase ground-breaking innovations in continuous improvement, meaningful work/life, and internationalization that are making meaningful changes in teacher education in Minnesota. As the Board focuses on your critical goals concerning teacher effectiveness, MACTE invites you to call on us to provide research, information and data as we work together towards Restoring Minnesota's Preeminence as a National Leader in Education.

 

As professionals who care deeply about the quality of education for our children, we continue to be faced with many new challenges and opportunities. Consistent with the Board's goals for this year is MACTE's agenda toward "Restoring Minnesota's Preeminence as a National Leader in Education." To accomplish our goals, we must work collaboratively, united for the purpose of providing a quality education for all students in the state of Minnesota.

Governor Pawlenty of Minnesota, recently stated that: "Teachers are the most important factor in determining whether students are going to succeed in school." Teacher educators agree with the Governor; research demonstrates that teacher preparation and certification are by far the most important factors in student achievements, even when controlling for poverty and language status (Darling-Hammond, 2000).  However, from a research-based perspective, MACTE has some points of disagreement with the governor's thoughts on the recruitment, preparation, retention and accountability of those teachers.

Perceived teacher shortages over the past two decades have prompted concern about future teacher shortages.  As a result, there has been tremendous pressure to quickly produce more and better teachers.  Responses to the anticipated teacher shortage have resulted in creative programs to recruit new teachers.  MACTE institutions have responded with standards-based programs designed for working adults that use creative scheduling and/or the internet. MACTE teacher development programs provide and document full teacher preparation before their graduates are given responsibility for a classroom of students. Programs such as Teach for America and the Fellows Program place individuals with very little training in some of the most-high need classrooms

In a letter to the editor of the New York Times, Dr. Michael J. Broning, Dean of the School of Education at the University of Alabama argues, "Every year the nation must replace between 5 and 10% of its teaching force of just over 3 million teachers with candidates new to the profession.  The TFA cohort of 6000 barely makes a dent.  The certified graduates of the nearly 700 fully credited schools and colleges of education dwarf that number. These candidates go through rigorous programs during which they must fully document their ability to make a difference in student learning.  Their abilities to teach are evaluated and documented prior to their hiring." In contrast to TFA teachers, teachers who earn licensure in Minnesota meet quality standards in both subject-matter and pedagogy.  As you know, these standards are in Minnesota rule and it is this Board, the Minnesota Board of Teaching, that holds the responsibility to ensure that these standards are met

The American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) reports that teacher shortages are less a function of how many teachers are produced than of how many are lost each year through turnover and early attrition. "The revolving door problem inflates the demand side of the equation and keeps school districts in a perpetual state of intense hiring pressure"(Policy Matters, AASCU, 2005).

In conclusion, MACTE again emphasizes its desire to join with the Board and others in the state to find practical and plausible solutions to these challenges while maintaining the high quality of teachers of which Minnesota is known. Let us shift our focus to retention of our highly-qualified teachers. MACTE echoes the words of Dr. Michael Broning when he states, "The best teachers engage in a lifetime of training and professional development.....This is the new profession of teaching and it is one of hundreds of examples housed in professional schools of education, not in boutique programs designed for temporary drop-ins."

MACTE has been asked for a position on the standards. I know that there are differences of opinion about the passage of these new standards. So MACTE will not be taking a single position. We recognize that if the Board does not act soon, the legislature will act for them.

However, we have two major concerns which I have expressed to Karen Balmer and shared with Louise Wilson, the higher education representative on the BOT.

1. The first is that the level of detail in these reading standards will set a precedent for future revisions in the standards. Along with that, of course, is the concern about how institutions will be able to document that we are covering and assessing our candidates on all of these standards.

2. The second is that there are some items that are not appropriate for beginning teachers. These are competencies that are developed over time when working with children. They are enhanced by high quality induction and mentoring programs.

 

The Board will be voting to move to rulemaking at their meeting on Friday, July 11th.