How prepared is your child's teacher? Studies show no single factor is more important in the classroom than who's in charge. Teacher quality matters more than any other school-related factor, research says, including class size, school size and up-to-date technology. Only a student's home life has more influence on achievement. To understand teacher preparation in Colorado, the Rocky Mountain News is tracking two new teachers and a college education major for the school year. One teacher is Erin O'Grady, who completed a traditional, four-year teacher-preparation program before taking over a third-grade classroom near downtown Denver. Another is Stephanie Leija, who is earning her teaching license in an alternative program while she teaches English as a Second Language at a middle school in Wheat Ridge. The college education major is Danielle Broe, who is wrapping up four years of study in the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Boulder. During the school year, the News will look at these three teachers and how their previous knowledge and current experiences are preparing them for the classroom. Across the country, state lawmakers have focused on student standards and testing to improve education. Now they've turned to teacher-preparation programs. More than 25 states have passed laws, increased the requirements for schools of education and spent millions in the name of improving teacher preparation. Colorado is no exception. In 1999, state lawmakers passed Senate Bill 154, a sweeping overhaul of the state's 16 public and private teacher preparation programs. The new law requires would-be teachers to spend at least 800 hours in K-12 schools before graduating. It also requires teacher candidates to prove they have the skills to obtain a license. The required skills, a total of 45, are set out in eight broad standards for teachers. For example, under the new state standard "Knowledge of Classroom and Instructional Management," would-be teachers must show they can apply "sound disciplinary practices" in the classroom. "You must demonstrate before you leave college that you can teach," said State Sen. John Evans, R-Parker, who proposed the bill. "It's the performance we're after." Some pieces of the reform are controversial. The National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education has urged states not to hire unlicensed teachers. But the Colorado law created Teacher In Residence, an alternative program that puts unlicensed teachers in the classroom while they earn their licenses. Evans, a former State Board of Education member, said the program was prompted partly by a shortage of teachers in hard-to-fill subject areas such as special education and math. Also, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future has urged states to create five-year preparation programs, incorporating a full year of supervised teaching in the classroom. But Colorado law requires that state preparation programs be completed in four years. Again, Evans said, that was done partly to meet the demand for new teachers. What the impact of the new law will be is still uncertain. What is already clear, however, is that Colorado's recent teacher graduates, like their peers nationwide, have reported feeling unprepared in certain respects. In an August survey of Colorado teachers in their first and third years of teaching, only half rated their preparation "good" or "excellent" in basic literacy skills such as teaching phonics, spelling and vocabulary. The teachers the News is following also report varying degrees of readiness for their chosen field. They are unified, however, in their passion for the classroom. "People who think teaching is easy are totally insane," new teacher Leija wrote in her journal charting her first year running a classroom. "This is the most challenging job I've ever had. There is nothing I would rather do more." |
Part 1: Three new teachers discuss their classrooms, how their education prepared them and the effect of a school's location on student discipline. 
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