October 2007

We have made it through the first month of the new school year. The experienced teachers and most students have settled into their academic routines for the year. But research suggests that the new teachers may still be struggling. They have learned about and practiced teaching while enrolled in Minnesota’s standards-based, teacher preparation programs. Now they are finally in their own classrooms – but in a new school, with new students, in a new community, and working with new colleagues and administrators. They may even be teaching a new curriculum. This can all be very overwhelming. How do we support these new teachers once they leave our programs?

In a 2003 article in the journal Educational Leadership, Sharon Feiman-Nemser comments, “More states are mandating induction programs than ever before, and many urban districts offer some kind of support to beginning teachers, usually in the form of mentoring.” Induction is another term often used for supporting new teachers. MACTE continues to believe that induction or mentoring programs are an important initiative that needs to be supported by the Board of Teaching. The new teachers who find themselves in these situations are important to all of us. They represent the product of MACTE teaching and BOT guidance and licensure. They have the ability to connect with their students to inspire learning but are in need of continued support in order to remain in the profession.

Unfortunately we are seeing large numbers of these new teachers leave the profession in the first few years. According to Richard Ingersoll and coauthor Thomas Smith, “The teaching occupation suffers from chronic and relatively high annual turnover compared with many other occupations.” They also note, “The turnover problem, although high for the entire teaching occupation, affects beginning teachers more than others.” Ingersoll and Smith found that about 20% of new teachers who leave teaching report staffing changes in their school or district led to their departure. For the new teachers that do remain, staffing changes often result in them being placed in new positions and often new schools. The University of Minnesota found that only 49% of their second year teacher graduates held the same position they had during their first year of teaching. So, once again, a large portion of new teachers find themselves as “new teachers” in their second year.

How do we, as teacher educators, ensure that these new teachers are receiving the support they need? Ingersoll, Smith, Feiman-Nemser and a number of other researchers have explored the value of mentoring or induction programs for new teachers. The research concludes that mentoring and induction programs help us retain our new teachers. We can’t afford to lose new teachers in the licensure fields where we already have shortages. We don’t want to lose good new teachers in any licensure area. And, we want to help all new teachers develop into even better teachers.

It’s a good time of year to think about our new teachers. As we continue through the coming academic year, MACTE would like to work with the Board of Teaching to support, plan, and implement a teacher induction/mentoring program for new teachers throughout Minnesota.

September 2007

As leaders in teacher education, MACTE serves all learners in an ever-changing society through its commitment to high and consistent standards for every teacher.

On behalf of our entire Minnesota Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, we eagerly anticipate another productive and positive year working together with the Board. We, as always, look forward to serving as a resource for Executive Director Balmer, Chair Johnson, and the entire Board of Teaching.

We also invite all of you to attend our annual Congresses focused on “Embracing the Future to Maximize Human Potential.” Specifically, this year we will be examining a number of the sixteen trends raised by Gary Marx in his book Sixteen Trends: Their Profound Impact on our Future--Implications for Students, Education, Communities, and the Whole Society. Gary Marx will be our keynote presenter at the Fall Congress to be held on October 11-12th. We encourage you to hear what he has to say. For more information please visit our web site. http://www.mnteachered.org/

The MACTE website and its companion MTQM site have undergone extensive revisions this year, so we encourage you to visit both sites soon. As you know, the MTQM site has served several functions. First, it provides potential teacher candidates access to programmatic information about twenty-eight teacher preparation institutions in the state. If one is looking for alternative routes to certification, the site provides a myriad of options to explore. Second, the site has provided our organization and yours important data regarding the number of completers in all licensure areas. We, once again, encourage you to examine these two resources. The MTQM site and data will be rolling out in late fall.

In the September 2007 edition of Educational Leadership, Gordon Donaldson Jr. provides us with an interesting model for thinking about leadership. He suggests many individuals involved in education leadership roles have a lack of understanding about the complexities of leadership. While his article is primarily aimed at K-12 systems, I believe he raises substantive ideas for us all to consider. Central to his model is the notion that hierarchical leadership is not an effective model for an education profession culture that supports a rich egalitarian ethic. As an alternative to a hierarchical model, he suggests a relational model of leadership. Leadership does not reside in individuals, but in the spaces among individuals. Leadership is when we communicate with each other, share wisdom, and, together, influence school life to make learning better for all children. Essentially, he suggests strong leadership must build relationships, maintain a sense of purpose, work for the common good by improving practice, and include a complementary mix of individuals. As always, we value our partnership with the Board, and will strive to continue to build relationships with you in the quiet spaces between the titles, task forces, boards, and organizations.

June 2007

The Minnesota Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (MACTE) has as one of its primary goals collaboration with other education organizations and policy makers.  It is important to note that this is also a stated goal of the Board of Teaching.   During the past year MACTE has enacted this goal through collaborations with Education Minnesota; legislators; content specialty groups (e.g. special education, reading organizations, and social studies); the Minnesota Department of Education; Educator Licensing; the Board of Teaching staff; and the Board itself.  MACTE members have worked to be partners in the true sense of the term both within our organization working across institutional types and with other organizations – offering our expertise as we were able, listening to other perspectives, modifying positions to ensure that the partnership worked well.

As we move further into the 21st century, we find more and more leaders acknowledging the importance of social and intellectual capital.  Daniel Pink in his book, A Whole New Mind has stated, “People who hope to thrive in the Conceptual Age must understand the connections between diverse and seemingly separate disciplines.  They must know how to see the big picture, cross boundaries, and be able to combine disparate pieces into an arresting new whole.” And Gary Marx in Sixteen Trends and Their Profound Impact on the Future states, “The basic idea of social capital is that networks have value…for transmitting information…for undergirding cooperation and reciprocity.  Limit the circle, and you narrow the range of ideas that will refresh the organization.  Broaden it, and intellectual wealth blossoms, paving the way for creating a future”.  We agree that it is critical, at the very heart of a well-educated person, to hear and consider issues from multiple perspectives.

This work is generally not easy, in fact it is difficult to reassess what each of us individually and collectively hold as truth or as important, but to be true to our goal of collaboration we must go beyond what we know to allow a real examination of other perspectives.  The business of education is about social and intellectual capital, and inherent in that is building, tending, and expanding relationships.  We will work to model that process in working together with you over the next year.

MACTE wishes to extend a warm welcome to the new members of the Board of Teaching, to be your partners in the preparation of teachers for Minnesota students, and to continue in our dialogue to be sure all voices and perspectives are considered in this important work.  Just as your membership has changed, so too has ours – on our Executive Committee we have some continuing members, and also some new ones.  Maureen Prenn from Minnesota State University Mankato is our new president.  You will be seeing and hearing from other members of our Executive Committee as well as other members of MACTE at each of your meetings.  We look forward to expanding these relationships.