Reinventing Teacher Preparation & HEA

Last week Congress approved the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. What exactly does that mean for teacher preparation programs and new teachers? How can the combined grant programs improve teacher quality? One Education Week article suggests:

“It could be used to develop teacher residency programs, which would allow students pursuing master’s degrees in education to work alongside mentor teachers…teacher education programs could also use the grants to bolster field experiences for undergraduates and provide support to new teachers during their first years in the classroom, including helping them develop relationships with mentor-educators.”

NCTAF supports teacher residency programs and new teacher induction as a way to prepare, retain, and support effective teachers and keep the best and brightest in the classroom. While new teachers cite many reasons for leaving the profession, the top of that list continues to be school culture and professional working conditions. New teachers feel unsupported and isolated. While the rest of the world operates in teamwork-type model, our schools have yet to make that transition.

States like Ohio, Indiana, New Jersey and South Carolina require and finance mentoring for new teachers, while Boston, D.C. and Chicago have developed teaching residency models to better prepare new teachers for classroom challenges.

Do the provisions of HEA provide an effective answer to teacher preparation problems? What kind of teacher prep initiatives are going on in your state? What do you think the key components are to successful residency and mentoring models?