Colorado's new teacher requirements now in place, but results will take time By Julie Poppen News Staff Writer Colorado is part of a national push to reform teacher education programs, placing major new demands on what is expected of new teachers. The idea, according to Sen. John Evans, R-Parker, a former State Board of Education member, is "you must demonstrate before you leave college that you can teach." Evans, who proposed the new requirements in a 1999 bill that became effective last summer, was motivated by national surveys indicating that new teachers were woefully ill-prepared. One result: School districts ended up paying for extra teacher training, diverting much-needed money from the classroom. Along with Colorado, 37 other states are in varying stages of adopting this "performance" model for teacher preparation. The new Colorado teacher standards are broken into in eight general categories: literacy; math; standards and assessment; content; classroom and instructional management; individualization of instruction; technology; and democracy, educational governance and careers in teaching. The stakes were high as the state moved to embrace the law: Campuses that failed to meet the new rules were to be shut down. All 15 programs reviewed by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education (CCHE) passed muster and were spared, but not without problems and protest. At some institutions, there was wholesale cutting of majors available to students preparing to teach in elementary school. The CCHE decided the majors either required too many credit hours, or failed to meet state standards in science, math, reading or writing. Only 17 elementary education majors remain at the University of Colorado at Boulder, for example, down from 49. Popular courses of study such as sociology, ethnic studies and Spanish were lost, although recently CU was assured Spanish would be restored. "We think some things were turned down without there being enough chance to actually look to see whether they met standards," CU-Boulder education Dean Lorrie Shepard said. "When we went to majors for education students in 1982, it was part of an important reform to move away from an elementary education degree, a watered-down major, to ensure depth of knowledge." Evans' law mandates that students be able to graduate in four years or 120 hours. It also requires a minimum of 800 hours of focused, field-based experience. It calls for surveys of first-and third-year teachers who graduate from Colorado colleges. If those surveys, which are now being developed, coupled with other indicators, reveal major weaknesses in a college program, the state can shut the program down. "The implicit tension -- if not contradiction -- is that it (the new law) is both about quality and efficiency," Shepard said. "At some point, those come in conflict." Under the new rules, "students can't miss a single beat (toward graduation)," Shepard said. "They have to walk in the door knowing what they want. That's highly unusual for 17-year-olds. They can't take a single wrong course." The new law also allows districts to create Teacher-in-Residence programs, making it easier for people without teaching credentials to become teachers while getting the instructional support they need. While educators, including Shepard, generally endorse the performance-based standards, some remain concerned that coursework will be diluted in the push to limit credit hours students take for graduation. Some states, by contrast, are moving toward giving students five years to complete their teacher training. It's too early to tell if Colorado's performance plan is translating into better teachers, but Sharon Samson, CCHE director of academic and student affairs, said, "These are now considered quality programs, not second-class programs." Other states have found success with similar reforms -- over time. Connecticut began the same process 15 years ago and only now is "really up to scale," said Shari Francis, vice president for state relations for the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. Today, Connecticut's teachers earn some of the highest salaries in the nation and there are virtually no alternatively licensed teachers. "It's a major transition that does not come easy or cheap," Francis said.
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Part 3: How prepared are new instructors to meet teacher requirements and students' academic goals? Three new teachers tackle standards. 
Age: 23
Age: 28 
Age: 22
