Stanford University and Preparing Teachers for a New Era: A Critical Review with Considerations for the Future
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Stanford University and Preparing Teachers for a New Era:
A Critical Review with Considerations for the Future
Barnett Berry
Center for Teaching Quality
July 2008
Introduction
By most accounts Stanford University’s teacher education program is
exceptional. With the initiation of the Stanford Challenge, the program will no doubt
become even more exceptional. Developing “education leaders” and “model learning
environments” as well as improving education policy through compelling data and
evidence are major components of President John L. Hennessey’s initiative that is
described as “nothing short of building a university for the 21st century and beyond.” As
part of the Stanford Challenge, the University has committed $125 million to improving
K-12 education.
While researchers have concluded that teachers are powerful predictors of
whether their students achieve academically, little consensus exists as to how to define
qualified teachers and how they should be prepared. Stanford’s varied approaches to
developing highly effective teachers, supporting innovative charter schools, and
conducting cutting-edge policy research are expected to define how a prestigious,
private university makes teacher education a top priority.
Stanford’s Teacher Education Program (STEP) is small but routinely attracts top-
flight students with high grade point averages and “toward top of the scale” GRE scores,
who also bring much needed ethnic diversity to the teaching profession. Given the high
cost ($45,000) of the one-year, post-baccalaureate program, students who enter STEP
must be very intentional about committing to serious study of teaching and an intensive
preparation for teaching in urban schools — and they are. A recent report indicated that
the vast majority of STEP graduates seek to teach in high-needs schools, remain in
teaching at much higher levels than peers from other teacher education programs, and
highly rate their preparation on almost every dimension.1
Stanford University seeks to prepare future teachers in redesigned schools, where
subjects are taught through interdisciplinary topics, teachers teach small numbers of
students over time, high-quality professional development is the norm, time is set aside
for teacher collaboration, principals are excellent teachers themselves, and the
achievement gap is closing. One K-12 school administrator, who works in partnershipwith STEP, noted, “Stanford prepares teachers who are not afraid to transform their
schools.”
However, some tensions seem to exist among the university’s diverse faculty as to
whether STEP graduates should be prepared to teach in schools as they are or in schools
as they should be. As one faculty member observed:
Our new teachers need materials that we taught them to use. They want more
time to learn from their colleagues – especially in developing and tailoring
curriculum (like Open Court) for their own students. How our graduates
understand and mediate a standardized curriculum is an issue that needs to be
addressed even more.
Others debate whether partner schools should primarily focus on school redesign
or instructional improvement. Nevertheless, administrators and experienced teachers
who work with both STEP students and graduates have nothing but uniform high praise
for them. As one principal from a partner school commented, “Stanford’s idea of teacher
education is not just on ‘learning to teach’ but on figuring out what our students are
learning.” One experienced teacher, who also supervises STEP student teachers,
reflected:
Teachers from Stanford are so well-prepared. All new teachers start out focusing
on themselves, and Stanford graduates are no different. However, compared to
other new teachers I have worked with, they are exposed to lots of deeper
thinking and for novices they have a canny ability to be reflective. Their main
concern is about learning.
STEP students matriculate through a 15-month program, where they earn a
master of arts in education degree. The dense and intensive program of 45 units of
graduate course work weaves together theory and practice, requiring teacher education
students to work about 20 hours per week at a nearby partner school. The program
hones in on five major areas: social and psychological foundations of education;
content-specific curriculum and instruction coursework; language, literacy, and culture;
general teaching strategies; and the student teaching practicum. But most importantly,
the year-long clinical practices are “completely wrapped” around coursework — which
serve as the key to Stanford’s efforts to transform its teacher education program. STEP
students and their cooperating teachers plan and teach together — and seamless lessons
are readily observed in walk-through visits. Over the last several years cooperating
teachers are being increasingly recruited and selected from the ranks of STEP graduates
teaching in the Bay Area — providing a bedrock of consistency of what is taught on
campus and what is required in the student teaching practica.
Approximately 40 percent of the 46 school of education faculty typically teach in
STEP. This is quite unusual for an expensive and exalted university such as Stanford.
Faculty meet quarterly to discuss curriculum and other program issues and faculty who
teach the courses redesign them at least annually based on course evaluations and other
program considerations. This creates a unique environment where courses are no longer
2wholly owned by individual professors. Indeed, curricular revisions are quite common
among the Stanford faculty. Nevertheless, much of the core work gets done by 13
supervisors, 15 affiliated faculty, and a rotating group of talented doctoral students. The
clinical faculty and doctoral students teach a number of the classes and are responsible
for the nine observations and feedback sessions required of the program. A content-area
supervisor supports approximately four STEP student teachers. Selection of cooperating
teachers has become a priority of the program, especially since Linda Darling-
Hammond arrived in 1998 and led a redesign of the program. A strict observation
protocol is used to determine who teaches and mentors the teacher education students
— and increasingly placement schools must represent both academic excellence and
equity, hallmarks of the STEP vision. As one faculty member noted, “Too many schools
in the Bay Area – especially high schools — brutally track students of color and cannot
offer our student teachers powerful examples of good teaching for all students.”
Recently, STEP has focused even more on outcomes, with the invention and use
of the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) — developed in response
to a California State mandate (SB2042) requiring teacher preparation programs to use
authentic measures to determine who gets credentialed.* Studies have shown that PACT
— in some ways a miniature version of the advanced certification process forged by the
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards® — pushes future teachers to learn
more about their K-12 students and figure out more systematically how to address their
specific learning needs as well as plan a more coherent progression of classroom lessons
and adapt their instruction based on more defined and sophisticated assessments.2
Stanford worked with 17 other California university partners in creating PACT, and in
doing so, has made teacher education more rigorous and relevant in the state. And their
National Board Resource Center (NBRC), funded by several national and local
foundations, has helped the University bolster the number of National Board Certified
Teachers® (NBCTs) in the Bay Area – now totaling 334. This number is substantial —
given that there were only six NBCTs in 1998 when the NBRC began its efforts to
support the development of these accomplished teachers. A new Stuart Foundation
grant will help strengthen the NBRC by (1) increasing the overall number of National
Board Certified Teachers in California; (2) promoting strategies for building cohorts of
board certified teachers in schools, particularly schools identified as high-needs; and (3)
developing means by which groups of NBCTs assume leadership roles and develop a
more significant voice about the real work of teaching in California classrooms.
Finally, STEP has begun to support its graduates by providing site mentors at
four of its partner schools, paid in part by the state-funded, California Beginning
Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) Induction Program. BSTA provides formative
assessment, individualized support and advanced content for newly-credentialed,
beginning teachers, and is the preferred pathway to a California Professional (Clear)
Teaching Credential. However, because most new teachers in California are not nearly
as well-prepared as STEP graduates, how mentors are recruited and selected and what
*
PACT performance assessments are subject-specific portfolios of teaching (called “Teaching Events”) with a
standardized set of integrated tasks that require teachers to document their planning, teaching, and assessing of
specific lessons.
3kinds of supports novices are provided are not always in sync with what STEP graduates
have come to expect.
STEP and Teachers for a New Era
Drawing on both the reform “frame” and resources of Teachers for a New Era
(TNE), Stanford University has extended its previous reach in transforming its well-
respected teacher education program. TNE, a philanthropic initiative of the Carnegie
Corporation of New York, has focused on a three-prong reform effort: (1) using evidence
to assess teacher education effectiveness, (2) deepening the involvement of arts and
science faculty in teacher education and induction, and (3) preparing teachers in
rigorous clinical settings and then supporting them through their initial years in
teaching. Stanford is one of 11 universities funded by this ambitious five-year grant
program designed to elevate the importance of teacher education and promote cutting-
edge accountability and partnerships with arts and science faculty as well as K-12
schools.
Over the last four years of TNE support, STEP has conducted a number of teacher
education studies, created an education minor in collaboration with faculty in the
Humanities and Sciences, and expanded its partner schools and K-12 outreach efforts to
deepen clinical training for its candidates and support for its graduates through both its
Continuing Studies Program and Summer Institute. These efforts have begun to surface
evidence on the effectiveness of their elementary and secondary preparation programs,
built stronger connections between education and H&S faculty and a new venue to
recruit underrepresented minority students to teaching careers, and provided more
direct support of the public schools while offering its teacher candidates better
preparation for teaching in high-needs schools. In addition, with TNE support, STEPnet
has been launched — a unique database and online resource that has potential to both
connect faculty, students, and alumni but also offer just-in-time data so that faculty and
administrators can make more effective programmatic decisions.
TNE has supported and supplemented Stanford’s teacher education reform
efforts at $1 million a year for the last four years. Without TNE funds, Stanford would
not have been able to invest in assembling evidence and building new assessments,
involving arts and science faculty in the preparation and support of STEP students and
graduates, and supporting partner schools.
This paper offers an external perspective on Stanford’s TNE efforts, with a
primary focus on the partner schools’ support and outreach efforts — especially as
university administrators and faculty make strategic decisions about how to best
institutionalize their most effective reform efforts as the grant program winds down. At
best this paper can be considered a critical review, with considerations for the future.
This paper does not represent a formal evaluation, with comprehensive research
questions, a wide range of triangulated data sources, pre- and post-measures, and
robust dependent variables that speak to student teaching performance, novice teacher
retention, and K-12 student achievement. But it can serve as a vehicle for internal
introspection and a basis for asking questions of both policy and practice. TNE fueled a
4range of interlocking efforts related to “decisions driven by evidence,” “engagement with
the Humanities and Sciences,” and “teaching as an academically taught clinical practice”
(see Appendix A for list of TNE-funded efforts). I close each section with “reflections” on
how to sustain the efforts, and the paper concludes with considerations on which TNE-
fueled efforts should “stay” and which ones should “go.”
Site visits took place between late Fall 2006 and early winter 2008 where I was
able to primarily draw on interviews with administrators, faculty, and doctoral and
teacher education students, as well as graduates who are teaching locally and school
principals who hired and supervise them. In addition, a wide range of published and
unpublished papers related to the TNE reforms were reviewed.
One thing is certain: Much of what Stanford has done of late — its curricular
revisions, induction supports, new forms of assessing STEP students, and assembling
evidence on the effects of the program on K-12 learning — could not have been done
without the infusion of capital from Carnegie and its $5 million TNE investment (over
five years) in the institution. However, the roots of Stanford’s teacher education
transformation run much deeper. The transformation of teacher education is not a
simple matter, nor is it a product of a simple program. My review of Stanford’s efforts to
prepare teachers lands in the middle of an intersecting set of ideas, resources, and
actions.
The story begins with the real world of Stanford’s partner schools where its
student teachers are being prepared and where growing numbers of recent graduates
are teaching. From there I begin to trace briefly how STEP students and graduates learn
to teach — and how they view what they know and what they don’t. Then I briefly
consider the status of assembling evidence on Stanford’s efforts to document teacher
education effects and use the data for programmatic improvement. Despite the difficulty
of addressing a slew of methodological matters, several TNE studies are promising in
their capacity to surface some evidence of how Stanford’s teacher education program
matters for both novices and the public school students they teach. Finally, I close with
several recommendations of how Stanford can strategically use its resources and
influence teacher education reform in the future.
Partner Schools
Brief site visits to six of Stanford’s ten partner schools — including Downtown
College Preparatory, East Palo Alto Academy – K-8 School, East Palo Alto Academy –
High School, Eastside College Preparatory, Hillsdale High School, and Summit
Preparatory High School† — revealed a host of similarities and differences. In each
school Stanford’s imprimatur was visibly seen and viscerally felt. The ideas, resources,
and strategies promulgated by university faculty were readily drawn upon and used by
K-12 administrators and teachers.
†Other partner schools include Fremont High School, Gateway High School, June Jordan School for Equity, and Sequoia High
School.
5Teacher education is often criticized by policy analysts and researchers who claim
that universities are out of touch with the problems of everyday school practice. This is
not the case with STEP – at least not now. Several university faculty claimed that in the
past classes were “totally theoretically taught.” However, no longer do individual faculty
own courses – and the “quality of clinical practices has changed dramatically.” In fact,
on my site visits I consistently found evidence that the “problems of practice” were
readily recognized by Stanford faculty, routinely identified by the clinical associates, and
incorporated into a new round of programmatic revisions. Changes in the key
curriculum and instruction courses, the monthly meetings of the K-12 and university
partners, and regular school visits by Stanford faculty all contribute to relevance of
teacher education. As one administrator at Hillsdale High School asserted, “I am
amazed at how well faculty – for example Linda Darling-Hammond and Ruth Ann
Costanzo – know our school.”
In addition, respect and trust among the school and university parties — rarely
found in other partnerships I have come to know across the nation— were clear and
present during my visits. Highly energized faculty as well as STEP students and
graduates (some interviewed were already in their fifth year of teaching) were the norm
and all seemed to be reading off the same page when it came to questions about the
purposes of the partnership and the significance of these relationships in how Stanford
prepares teachers, what new teachers know and can do, and what is needed in the next
generation of collaborative efforts. I have been on many teacher education campuses
and visited and reviewed many partner (or professional development) schools’ efforts.
However, I have yet to “see” the kind of synchronous vision described and enacted by
such a wide range of K-12 administrators, teachers and university faculty as I did on my
Stanford visits. In large measure much of the synchronicity is created by the intensive
support provided by Stanford’s clinical faculty who are well-connected to and spend a
great deal of time in the partner schools. Clinical faculty serve as liaisons and mentors as
well as advisors to principals and recruiters of new teachers. Of course they also teach
STEP classes and supervise student teachers.
Partner schools meet monthly with one another and use one another and
Stanford faculty as “external change agents.” During my last visit, I participated in a
walk-thru at Eastside College Preparatory where teachers and administrators from most
of the partner schools and several Stanford clinical faculty spent a day together looking
at teaching practices and reflecting on their joint school-university efforts. While it was
difficult to ascertain how the monthly meetings connected to each other, the events were
no doubt helpful to university and school practitioners alike.
Stanford faculty and staff help in a variety of ways — offering curricular resources
and materials, assisting in filling vacancies, providing tutors, brokering new ideas and
outside experts, and facilitating site visits to other schools. However, a number of faculty
interviewed lamented the lack of stable funding for their content area supervisors, who
are now also serving as mentors for newly minted STEP graduates who are teaching in
several of the partner schools. As one faculty member noted, “We need several clinical
faculty lines because what we have now for several of our best supervisors are cobbled
together.” Affiliated faculty are engaged in a wide range of responsibilities — leaving
6little time to work in the partner schools. As one Stanford faculty member noted, “There
is nothing in our job description that tells us to spend time in schools.” Their dedication
and commitment are noteworthy as a number spend many more hours per week in the
field than expected (and compensated for). Now there are approximately 30 different
Stanford faculty and staff “serving” the partner schools — and without a specific liaison
for each — the efforts do “lack some coordination.”
However, not surprisingly, the intensity of K-12 student needs framed both plan
and action of the partner school efforts. Nowhere were the differences more stark than
in the needs of students at two of the partner schools — East Palo Alto High School
(EPAHS) and Eastside College Preparatory (ECP). Both schools, founded by graduates
of STEP, serve as an existent proof that a major university cannot only pursue a rigorous
research agenda, typically valued by academic culture, rules, and reward systems, but
can also support and help lead the transformation of public schooling. EPAHS is a
charter supported by the Stanford Schools Corporation. Eastside Prep is a private school
that charges no tuition and works closely with STEP, which provides most of its
teachers. At each school virtually all of the students are poor and minority, with the vast
majority of them speaking a language other than English at home. At EPAHS, almost all
enter high school reading several grade levels below where they should be.
While both schools serve similar students, ECP can be selective in the students it
serves because of its private school status and fund raising acumen and success. ECP
can spend approximately three times more per student than EPAHS — where “resources
are just not available to deal with all of the socio-emotional needs of (its) students.”
Eastside offers extra tutorials, college counselors and special education teachers; field
trips to visit both in-state and “back East” colleges; summer orientation programs;
smaller advisory loads; longer school days; and “boot camp” for seniors to get them
ready for the rigors of their final year of high school. At ECP all students, with the
support they are given, will take at least pre-calculus. The small school of 220 students
offers a wide array of Advanced Placement classes – in biology, physics, economics,
Spanish Literature, and English – as well as AB/BC Calculus. EPAHS does not — and
cannot on its annual $8,000 per student allocation – offer all of these opportunities.
Nevertheless, EPAHS ensures all students have an advisor and the opportunity to take a
full array of college preparatory courses, as well as a set of college level courses through
its Early College Program in collaboration with Canada College.
At both schools one can see expert teaching. In one of many stunning examples at
Eastside, I watched STEP graduate Stacy Ishigaki teach 10th grade American Literature
where 23 students were deeply engaged and focused on understanding and using
literary terms and writing conventions. Ms. Ishigaki, a newly minted 2007 STEP
graduate, was adept at Socratic questioning as she seamlessly drew on her knowledge of
her students and what they had previously learned. At EPAHS, I saw very similar
teaching from a wide range of teachers. The influence of STEP preparation was obvious.
In the past, STEP students enjoyed a wide range of possibilities in accessing
quality cooperating teachers and placements. As one STEP student noted:
7The CT with whom you are placed makes a huge difference. It may be the most
important factor in the experience. That person needs to trust you and be willing
to relinquish control, to let you try stuff. It is most helpful when the CT is a recent
STEP grad (within the last six years) because then you are both on the same page
in terms of teaching for understanding.
One university faculty member commented, “We use to think that we could not get good
cooperating teachers.” To enhance quality control, Stanford faculty made personal
recruiting visits to partner schools, ratcheted up the selection criteria and mentor
training, and reduced the number of school sites in which STEP candidates are placed
and supported. In fact, the number of school sites has been reduced from about 50 in
1998 to only 15 in 2002. Now almost 50 percent of the STEP students are placed in its
10 partner schools — where they are being prepared in cohorts and are given structured
opportunities to learn from one another. As one student teacher noted, “If I did not have
my classmates with me I would not be doing as well as I am.”
Despite these important program design components, some rifts were apparent
in the critical cooperating teacher-STEP student relationship and discrepancies of
support appear to exist across school placements. Granted, one should expect partner
schools to offer prospective teachers varied opportunities to learn how to teach under
different contexts and conditions. At both EPAHS and ECP the majority of teachers are
STEP graduates. At both schools, student teachers are served by talented and dedicated
cooperating teachers, many of them STEP graduates. However, at EPAHS cooperating
teachers struggled to find time and energy needed to supervise and support their
student teachers. (In fact, an administrator at another partner school noted they could
not support more than six or seven of its 20 faculty as cooperating teachers — it is “just
too draining” with the workload they already have). ECP cooperating teachers embraced
their student teachers with almost boundless gusto. Stanford draws on a number of
innovative charter schools that can offer its unique student teachers important lessons
in urban school reform. But these small schools may not have the resources, despite the
infusion of TNE partnership school funding, to fully support its novices and the
cooperating teachers who are charged with developing them.
These differences do present some challenges. As one STEP student teacher
described:
“The kind of placement you have really determines a lot about your preparation
for different kinds of experiences – e. g., Eastside Prep does not present any
classroom management issues so I am not sure if I would be ready to handle
those that might arise in another (school) environment.”
A focus group of 14 STEP students were asked to rate their CT’s on a scale of 1-10. The
quick survey around the room revealed a range from 2.5 to 9.5 — with four STEP
students rating their CT’s lower than a 5, seven rating their CT’s in the 6 to 8 range, and
three rating their CT’s 9 to 10. The highest ratings came from those who were being
prepared in the partner schools.
8As the comments of one partner school educator who now serves as a site mentor
suggest, this initial investment in quality cooperating teachers is one that could yield
returns for numerous cycles of new teachers:
How did I learn to teach? My cooperating teacher was always finding ways to
solve problems with me. She gave me a chance to try new things and fail. She
experimented with me. She even read the text I was reading in my college courses
and helped me make the connections between theory and practice. She also was a
magnet for disenfranchised kids — and she modeled for me how to respond
differently to kids with diverse needs.
Partner School Reflections. The site visits and accompanying interviews revealed
a number of important issues and questions — including how partner schools are
funded and how the supports they offer could or could not be maintained without TNE
funds. TNE funding has provided “hard dollars” to the partner schools to use in
developing and supporting students and teachers. But perhaps most importantly the
success of Stanford’s partnerships with the K-12 world hinges on the clinical faculty who
provide the glue between the schools and the university. However, they are stretched
thin — especially those who are working in the higher need partner schools. For
example, qualified mentors, even those who are STEP graduates, have little time or
energy to support the partner school’s teacher education mission — placing even more
pressure on their assigned clinical faculty. The numbers of clinical faculty available seem
to be based on what is currently affordable, not necessarily what is needed from one
partner school to the next.
About one-half of STEP students are prepared in partner schools. It is unclear as
to whether STEP administrators and faculty seek to prepare all of its candidates in
partner schools. It is desirable or not? Even if it is, how do program leaders begin to take
account of the varied clinical experiences that candidates can have depending on where
they student teach, who is their cooperating teacher, and which clinical associate is
assigned to the school and how much time they have? There is no doubt that program
leaders are very conscious of the current variation in clinical experiences — and perhaps
far more than in other education schools across the nation. Figuring out how to “even-
out” these experiences and developing a funding model for high quality clinical training
needs to be part of efforts to institutionalizing the best of TNE.
In addition, Stanford’s partner schools are growing more NBCTs. However,
because the partner schools serve primarily high-needs communities, growing,
supporting, and utilizing NBCTs in them are not simple matters. These schools have
little, if any, available funding to offset the considerable costs of taking the $2,650
performance assessment and the intense socio-emotional needs of the students serves
as a barrier for teachers taking the time to focus on analyzing their teaching practices.
The partner schools have yet to develop strong connections to a valuable resource the
university is building with its National Board Resource Center. Perhaps in the future,
NBCTs could serve as virtual mentors to a wider range of STEP teacher candidates and
alumni — drawing on the potential of STEPnet.
9Learning to Teach
STEP students speak eloquently about their preparation. They know why they
learn about classroom management and differentiated instruction. They know how to
teach and assess with a standards-based lesson plan as well as how to conduct
comprehension checks and use graphic organizers. They can talk — in nuanced ways —
about how K-12 students acquire language and become literate as opposed to decoding
words, reciting vocabulary lists, and applying a set of grammatical rules. Unlike many
new teachers — especially those coming through alternative routes like Teach for
America (with whom they are compared) — they are relatively ready to work with the
growing numbers of second language learners who are filling classrooms across
California and the nation. A survey conducted several years ago revealed STEP
graduates reported that they were better prepared than a national sample of new
teachers on nine specific dimensions of teaching.3 These include teaching content; using
instructional strategies; using knowledge of learning; using a variety of assessments;
choosing teaching strategies for different instructional purposes; evaluating the effects
of their teaching; encouraging students to see, question, and interpret ideas from
diverse perspectives; teaching in ways that support new English language learners; and
helping students learn how to assess their own learning.4
The STEP students speak highly of professors and the clinical faculty/supervisors
who work with them. Stanford is fortunate to be located in a community where they can
draw on a relatively stable corps of supervisors — who are either retired teachers or
those who are home raising young children (and can afford to earn about $8,000 for
supervising and/or mentoring three to four student teachers). Over the last several years
connections have strengthened between what faculty teach and what supervisors “look
for” in student teachers. The ongoing analysis and reflection of the STEP faculty make
course content transparent to supervisors, who in turn can more readily assess the
development of student teachers.
In America there are almost as many theories of preparing teachers as there are
school systems — and there are 13,000 such systems. As one STEP student mentioned,
“Stanford has a set view of how students should be educated.” Most of their graduates
are inspired by the University’s ideals and are committed to the institution’s progressive
approach to teaching and learning. They can speak to the importance of both theory and
practice — even to the point that one STEP student lamented on not having an
opportunity to focus more on the theoretical aspects of lesson planning. This is not what
one hears from other teacher education students who bemoan that that their professors
promote the theoretical at the exclusion of the practical.
One good example of this balanced vision is found in Pam Grossman’s “blended”
course in English and education on Young Adult Literature – cross-listed by both
departments – that explores “disciplinary content related to genre study and theories of
literary interpretation with educational content related to young adult literature and
adolescent readers.” Another example emerging from the practicum component of the
program occurred when STEP students worked with 9th graders from East Palo Alto and
began to learn about adolescent literacy in the context of their investigations into their
10subject matter discipline – exploring reader response theories and their implications for
teaching and learning.
Administrators have nothing but high praise for STEP graduates. Compared to
other new teachers, STEP graduates enter teaching with a “much clearer picture of how
students learn” and “knowing what kind of materials and lessons are appropriate.” One
site mentor noted that “STEP students definitely do not need help with content or
pedagogy. They are awfully good at finding and using resources.” Other new teachers are
“just plain raw — at best” and their preparation programs appear to be “sending them
through the motions.” One administrator noted: “When you listen to STEP graduates
talk about their practice, the level of their conversation is very different from other
novices.” Many STEP graduates are already serving as department chairs by their third
year of teaching.
However, STEP graduates can feel like they are being prepared for schools that
do not yet exist. For some this is a source of huge frustration and angst. As one affiliated
faculty member noted:
Putting well-prepared teachers into places where they cannot teach well leads to
seriously disheartened teachers. STEP uses the partner schools as a means of
building a critical mass of STEP-minded teachers in schools where we hope to
train and eventually employ our candidates, but it seems worth asking if we
should have a strategy for extending our critical mass building efforts into local
schools. For example, UCLA’s strategy is to negotiate with schools who are hiring
to make sure that they always take at least two Center X grads if they take any.
They believe that there is strength in numbers.
STEP students seem to come away with a sound knowledge of building
curriculum – and are not shy about working with struggling students. They are very
articulate about what they know and do not know. They have a good sense of what it
takes to work with colleagues and seek new ways to collaborate. One graduate, now with
four years teaching experience, recalled how overwhelmed she was with the program.
But now she has a large repertoire of teaching strategies and research-based ideas to
draw on in solving day-to-day pedagogical problems. STEP gradates also come out
knowing that they want to learn more about teaching. Granted some did praise the
support they received “around more practical guidance on differentiation.” But they
need even more help on how to work effectively with the increasingly diverse students
they must teach. As one STEP graduate noted, “I know how to teach to three different
levels in my class —but what happens when my students need more and I cannot kill
myself accommodating for all of their differences?”
There were additional areas where fewer STEP students (though still a large
majority) felt well-prepared — including working with parents, using a grade book, and
confronting a myriad of legal issues. Nevertheless, these criticisms may be more of an
indictment of how little is invested in new teacher learning than the limitations of the
STEP program. On the survey reported previously – and conducted over seven years ago
— there were six areas in which 80 percent or fewer of the respondents felt adequately
11prepared: identifying and addressing special learning needs or difficulties, working with
parents, using technology in the classroom, creating interdisciplinary curriculum,
resolving interpersonal conflict, and assuming leadership responsibilities in their
schools. In examining the survey, “weak areas” were those where only 70 percent of the
candidates reported feeling well-prepared — which is in stark contrast to other teacher
candidates prepared in different teacher education programs.5
Today, administrators in partner schools point to only a few areas where STEP
graduates need more preparation and support: teaching reading across the content
areas, solving interpersonal conflicts between students, and engaging families in the
education of their students. As one site mentor noted:
New teachers — including STEP graduates — need a lot of help understanding
their place in the schools and classroom context. They need more help in learning
how to manage the overwhelming number of tasks they have to accomplish and
reading their environments. For example, when students ‘do A’ how do you
respond; and when they ‘do B’ how do you respond differently?
In our interviews the STEP graduates spoke about the importance of PACT as a
way for them to think about their teaching and use a common framework to help one
another teach more effectively. Indeed, the 2007-o8 STEP exit survey results revealed
strong support among the university’s teacher education students for PACT and its
“teaching event.” As shown in Table 1, on seven different dimensions, STEP graduates
uniformly “agreed”
that PACT helped Table 1
them become STEP candidates were asked to indicate their agreement with the
better teachers. statement: “Completing the PACT/Teaching Event provided me the
opportunity to demonstrate my . . .”
A Spring
2005 survey of Candidates’ mean ratings by content area
1 – Strongly Disagree 2 – Disagree 3 – Agree 4 – Strongly Agree
PACT candidates
— both at Stanford Total
(n=40) and other n=75
California Subject-specific
3.09
campuses (n=265) pedagogical skills
— revealed a great Monitoring of student
3.16
learning during instruction
deal about the Interpretation and use of
influence of PACT 3.24
assessments
— and particularly Ability to engage students
3.12
the Teaching Event in learning
– on the Ability to make content
3.17
accessible
preparation of
Developmentally
future teachers. appropriate practices
3.07
The survey, as Instructional planning 2.99
shown in Table 2,
while only Source: STEP Exit Survey 2007-08
capturing about 40
12Table 2 percent of all
candidates who
Candidates’ Perspectives on the Teaching Event (Stanford completed the
and all other campuses): “Please indicate your level of Teaching Event in
agreement with each of the statements about the 2005 — does suggest
PACT/Teaching Event below.” that Stanford is using
Candidates’ mean ratings by content area
PACT to make a
1 – Strongly Disagree 2 – Disagree 3 – Agree 4 – Strongly Agree unique teacher
education
Mean contribution.
Statement Stanford Other
(n = 40) (n=265)
I learned important skills through the
Granted, the
process of constructing the Teaching 3.00 2.67 data suggest more
Event work needs to be
The process of constructing the done. However, the
teaching Event helped to improve my 2.70 2.55 same survey revealed
lesson planning
that over 64 percent of
The process of constructing the
Teaching Event helped to improve my 2.85 2.66 the Stanford
knowledge of learners candidates, while only
The process of constructing the 37 percent of the
Teaching Event helped to improve my
3.00 2.76 “other” candidates,
assessment of student learning reported that their
progress
The process of constructing the
university professors
Teaching Event helped me to improve 2.88 2.68 and instructors were
my implementation of instruction helpful to them in
The process of constructing the completing the
Teaching Event helped me to reflect Teaching Event.
3.10 2.86
more carefully on my instructional
decisions
Nevertheless, as
My teacher preparation experience powerful as PACT is
2.93 2.48 for the teacher
was enhanced by the Teaching Event
The Teaching Event will be useful for
2.85 2.56
candidates, the
my future teaching practice assessment process is
just the beginning —
Source: PACT Candidate Survey Report, Updated 4/17/06
and suggests more
follow-up work on the
part of the faculty. One Stanford faculty member noted the need for graduates to
continue to learn how to inquire into their practice — that builds off of their PACT
experience. He noted that:
Because they are so overwhelmed, they can see the PACT process as artificial….
Yes, our students do a case study of a child and their family and community as
part of our curriculum – but this is just the beginning…. We need to continue to
help our graduates develop their inquiry skills in schools once they begin
teaching — and in a self-propelled way.
STEP graduates had specific suggestions that would serve them in their first few
years of teaching — or in a formal induction program. Most sought a continued
13relationship with their supervisors (e.g., a three-year relationship), more support in
developing new assessments and “rubric systems” for judging student work, spending
more time on understanding and using their PACT results, and having more time with
star professors like Darling-Hammond and Grossman as well as several others, who are
regularly mentioned. Perhaps most importantly they wanted a way to stay connected to
their cohort and to continue to learn from them — even through some form of virtual
community. STEP graduates receive a professional education in that there is a well-
defined body of knowledge they are expected to master and they are set up to learn from
their peers as well as their professors. A number of them want more assistance in
navigating the education policy world.
However, Stanford faculty are reported to be “marginally interested” in inducting
its graduates. Stanford’s funding formula, which does not follow students and posits a
zero-sum budgeting process for faculty and administrators, makes it very difficult to
generate or even imagine how the University could afford to follow its students for two
years upon graduation.
As a result, finding a coherent set of strategic initiatives for Stanford to support
STEP graduates seems to be elusive. There are, however, several powerful, highly valued
programs now in place as a result of TNE. In addition to the mentoring offered in
partnership with the New Teacher Center, the Stanford Continuing Studies Program —
which serves as a primary tool to involve the humanities and science faculty in teacher
education — is growing in stature and importance. Indeed, CSP reserved 50 spaces in
limited enrollment classes for teachers during the spring 2008 semester. However, with
TNE efforts as a stimulus, Stanford’s Provost has been making generous contributions
to the CSP. One education faculty member noted:
Fully involving the humanities and science faculty directly in teacher education
has been difficult to imagine here at Stanford. We have come to believe that a
more reasonable approach was to get them involved in professional development
(and the new undergraduate minor).
The approach seems to be working. CSP surveys reveal that STEP graduates give
their in-service coursework very high marks. For example, in the spring of 2007, an
impressive 90 percent of the survey respondents rated the coursework as “very
stimulating.” About one-half of the partner schools were represented by the
participating STEP graduates. The former Stanford teacher education students took a
wide variety of courses (over 50 offered), ranging from “The Oil Conundrum” to “Intro
to Personality Psychology” to “The Biology of Aging.” Other topics included “Effortless
Social Tango,” “Basic Design: The Fundamentals of Visual Language,” and “Cell
Renewal and Cancer.” The courses are far better than most professional development
offered in many of the schools in which STEP graduates teach. As one graduate noted,
“Finally I had access to professional development where I was able to engage in
academic discourse with someone over the age of 18.” One former STEP student, now a
10-year veteran teaching science, described the CSP course she took at her own
choosing:
14I learned so much…and have been able to bring back so much to my classroom. It
is so refreshing after 10 years that someone would trust me to make a decision
about my own professional growth. In this day and age imagine that!
Another noted that she was the “the only teacher in my school who teaches AP
environmental science – and the CSP allowed me to connect with and learn from others
in my field.” Through CSP, STEP graduates are able to stay connected to the deep
content knowledge associated with the courses they teach — and they are “deeply
grateful” for the “intellectual opportunity” and the “price break” as well. On a teacher’s
salary, Stanford graduates would have difficulty paying full tuition at the university.
The Summer Institute also offers a powerful venue for STEP graduates to
reconnect with teacher educators and their K-12 teaching colleagues. The three-day
symposium is designed by and for educators in the STEP program, targeting graduates,
partner school educators, supervisors, and cooperating teachers. Sessions included a
focus on teacher and student resiliency, data-based decision-making, differentiated
instruction, and teacher leadership. The session on differentiation prompted more and
positive feedback on the Institute’s evaluation survey. A review of summary documents
revealed comments such as “amazing – except I am feeling overwhelmed by all the great
ideas,” and “I gained many new perspectives that will take my teaching in new
directions.” Another teacher noted:
I am so grateful for the Institute. It means so much to me because I teach at a
school without a plethora of STEPees…. The energy and optimism from the
presenters and participants will not only inspire me to start the year off with a
bang but also encourage me to keep applying what I have learned.
Over 125 educators attended the 2007 Summer Institute – and even more are
expected to attend the 2008 sessions. TNE funded the Summer Institute at
approximately $12,000 in 2007.
Learning to Teach Reflections. In reflecting on “learning to teach,” several issues
have surfaced. First of all, STEP graduates find the PACT assessments as rigorous and
transformative in many ways. As one former STEPee noted, “Something changed for me
and how I think about my teaching.” However, because PACT is completed in the spring
not all professors integrate PACT-type assessments in their fall coursework. In our
interviews we were able talk with a few Stanford graduates who were teaching in nearby
partner schools. They seemed to struggle with what the PACT “taught” them about
teaching and learning during their program — which was powerful — and the narrow
professional development they experienced in their first years of teaching.
In the interviews, the site mentors did not mention how PACT helped them think
about how they assisted STEP graduates on the job. PACT information is beginning to
influence the practices of STEP faculty in helping teacher candidates learn to teach —
but the same influences do not always appear to be present in the partner schools.
Indeed, little is being done to connect PACT evidence of learning from the student
teaching experience to the induction program and long-term professional development.
15Second, Stanford’s site mentoring program is strong. The unique collaboration
between STEP and the New Teacher Center (NTC) – and co-mingling of various funds —
has resulted in more articulation between the pre- and in-service learning of STEPees.
However, the program impacts only a few of STEP’s graduates – and currently is only in
place in four of the 10 partner schools. For most STEP graduates, the BSTA program is
“just a repeat of what (they) already learned.” In addition, the STEP induction model
offers a way for its graduates to receive content-specific support, which is missing from
BSTA and the NTC. One STEP graduate “wished that the STEP program could run BTSA
for the State of California. I am looking to learn about teaching my subject matter in my
school, and the BSTA model is covering what we learned on day one in our program.”
However, it is unclear how the induction work will be evaluated, sustained, and
expanded as the program produces more graduates and they land in schools, both far
and near. Much like in other universities engaged in TNE reforms, considerable effort is
going into support newly minted graduates. But there is no obvious funding strategy to
sustain the work over time.
Third, the CSP offers much valued content support to the STEP graduates. As one
faculty member noted, the CSP and also the Summer Institute (SI) are “part of a
constellation of support that invites teachers to return to the university for developing
content knowledge at their own design.” Also, the Institute offers opportunities for
STEP to focus on its partner schools and the collective needs of teachers and
administrators in them. Partner school educators contribute to the SI program – but
have little to do with STEP itself. In reflecting several questions come to mind: To what
extent could partner school teachers and administrators play a more prominent role as
clinical faculty, work more closely with humanities and science professors in content-
specific pedagogical offerings, and participate more fully in the ongoing research on the
effectiveness of STEP? Is Stanford ready for joint appointments where partner schools
teachers fulfill the dual role of teaching children and serving as clinical associates?
Assembling Evidence
Of the three TNE design principles, assembling evidence on the effectiveness of
teacher education programs has been the most elusive. The TNE prospectus has called
for evidence that universities show how their programs produce graduates who help K-
12 students learn more — and for some, the use of standardized test scores and value-
added methods have become the coin of the realm. Stanford, like other TNE
institutions, has sought not to employ this simplistic teacher evaluation tool — and
instead has employed a wide range of methods and strategies. Faculty and
administrators have had to pull together data on what their teacher education students
learn and how they apply their knowledge and skills, devise new ways to track and keep
up with their graduates, and link graduates — no matter where they end up teaching —
to student achievement databases over time.
However, as Darling-Hammond, Grossman, and colleagues have noted, assessing
the effectiveness of teacher education on the basis of student learning gains is “difficult”
16at best. They note that accurately linking teacher education graduates to the student
achievement gains of the pupils they teach is confounded by the difficulty of
“comparable pre- and post-measures of learning” and attributing changes in student
performances to an individual teacher as well as accurately measuring what teachers
learned in their preparation program to what their pupils end up demonstrating many
years later.6 For example, most teachers do not teach in grades and subjects in which
they have standardized tests matched to them; missing student data and team teaching
confound even the most sophisticated value-added models intended to measure
individual teacher effects; and schools may mandate curriculum and methods that run
counter to the ways teachers are prepared to teach. A range of student factors, school
context, and teaching practices mediate the influence of teacher preparation on student
learning. Indeed, the National Mathematics Advisory Panel and its recent “ground-
breaking reports” revealed how difficult it is to conduct high quality quantitative
research in teacher education.7
Nevertheless, with TNE support the STEP program has begun to assemble an
impressive array of studies and initiatives that can make a significant contribution to
determining the effectiveness of Stanford graduates and examining how data can be
used to improve the preparation of future teachers. First of all, the University has
created STEPnet, a database research tool that will store biographical, academic, and
credentialing information of teacher education students — designed to be used by
students, faculty, and cooperating teachers and mentors.
TNE funds fueled the launch of STEPnet and also support about 20% of the time
of a junior staff member to manage the database tool, which can store and share
quarterly assessments, course artifacts, and PACT results as well as information helpful
to STEPees and their supervisors and mentors. Recent efforts have resulted in the data
collection and entry of all STEP graduates since 2000 and have yielded “good academic
and credentialing information” on approximately 600 graduates. Two years in the
making, more work is needed to ensure that valid contact information is available for
graduates and that a system is in place where they are motivated to update pertinent
information and stay connected — a key to tracking the effects of teacher education on
student learning.
The web portal is just beginning to be used but has tremendous potential to be an
ongoing source of connection if STEP students develop a commitment to use the site for
a larger set of communications and virtual learning opportunities (discussed later). If
the STEPnet is used only for administrative purposes, then the web tools will have
limited applications and impact in efforts to track graduates over time and assemble
information and data, as well as foster curriculum unit sharing among them.
Second, Stanford faculty and doctoral students have undertaken both elementary
and secondary studies to determine the effects of the respective programs on STEP
graduates’ teaching practices and their effectiveness in terms of enhancing K-12 pupil
learning. These studies, supported in large part by TNE funds, are examining critical
issues, such as how STEP graduates’ knowledge of teaching subject matter influences
both teaching practices and student learning outcomes. These studies represent cutting-
17edge approaches —primarily because of how Stanford researchers are examining direct
measures of teacher knowledge.
These studies are just beginning to be completed, so it is difficult to ascertain
their potential impact on program improvement and in larger debates about the
effectiveness of teacher education. Two things are clear for sure: First, TNE funds of
approximately $100,000-$200,000 annually have supported these “value-added”
studies — and this support cannot be underestimated in its importance. Second, the
studies have been painstakingly difficult to conduct because of the many logistical and
technical constraints involved in finding and matching STEP graduates and an adequate
comparison group, making connections to what is taught in teacher education and what
is practiced several years later, and what might be the effects of those teacher education-
derived pedagogies on K-12 pupil learning. Indeed, in recent analyses of over 200 STEP
graduates and a comparison group matched in the same schools, Stanford faculty have
found that value-added measures of teacher effects are not always highly stable, and
may depend on student backgrounds, school contexts, years of teaching experience, and
even different courses taught. However, despite the fact that more research is needed to
determine more stable measures of “teacher effect,” Stanford faculty and doctoral
students have surfaced relevant findings. For example, as shown in Figure 1, they have
found that STEP graduates, compared to the comparison group, rank high in value-
added effectiveness, controlling for student demographics and school-level effects.8
Figure 1
Source: Newton, X., Darling-Hammond, L. Haertel, E., and Thomas. E. (2008).
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