Ventura County Star

Student achievement gap crisis spurs conference

By Jean Cowden Moore
May 2, 2007

Jason Redmond / Star staff Camarillo 5/1/07: California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, right, listens to Glen Casey, associate dean for the college of education at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, bottom left, during a group discussion on teacher preparation at California State University Channel Islands in Camarillo on Tuesday morning. Emily Brizendine interim college of education dean at Cal State East Bay, from left, Anne Jones UC Irvine department of education coordinator, Ellen Curtis-Pierce, assistant provost for teacher education at Chapman University, and Caryl Hidges, associate dean in the University of San Francisco School of Education, look on.

Deans from teacher preparation programs across the state met Tuesday in Camarillo to figure out how they can train stronger teachers to help close the persistent achievement gap between white and minority students.

The meeting, which organizers said was the first of its kind, drew nearly 100 administrators from schools of education at California State University and University of California campuses, as well as private colleges.

While the state has made some progress in reducing the achievement gap, it must do more because Latino and black students still fall behind their white classmates, Jack O'Connell, state superintendent of public instruction, said in his opening remarks for the event at CSU Channel Islands.

"It's not only a moral imperative, it's an economic imperative if we're going to have a well-trained work force," O'Connell said.

The first speaker, Linda Darling-Hammond, an education professor at Stanford University, talked about what makes a good teacher prep program. Strong programs, she said, focus on child development, curriculum and assessment.

They also manage to fuse what's taught in the college classroom with what the students actually experience when they face a class themselves.

"This is the critical issue for teacher education bringing course work and clinical teaching together," she said.

She also addressed teacher assessments, which she said should be based on portfolios, including lesson plans and classroom videos.

After the presentation, participants, seated at tables of eight, discussed those issues among themselves. One table seized upon the question of assessing teachers. Participants talked about the expense of a good test up to $400 and what form the test should take.

"Students can score well on a planning test or on a content test," said Mary Gendernalik-Cooper, a dean at CSU Sonoma. "But preparation for teaching is not those separate entities. It's the whole."

Later in the day, Margaret Gaston, executive director of the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, addressed the achievement gap. Students in low-performing schools are far more likely to get a teacher who does not have even a preliminary credential, she said. They're also more likely to be in a math or science class with a teacher not trained to teach those subjects.

In a discussion afterward, Steve Bruckman, chancellor of California's community colleges, wondered if one solution might lie in recruiting community college students to go on and get teaching credentials.

"Schools should look for people who come from high-need areas," he said. "You'll find them at community colleges. They may be more likely to go back to their communities."

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