Director's Journal Overview
Journal Issue: Evaluating Outcomes of Teacher Quality Enhancement
In the eight years since the Associated Colleges of Illinois received its first U.S. Department of Education grants and established its Center for Success in High-Need schools, the Center has demonstrated that purposeful, collaborative action and critical, intentional data collection can advance systemic and sustainable change, ultimately resulting in equitable education for all. The Center’s accomplishments have marked a refreshing change for me. As a teacher educator at North Central College in Naperville, IL, an ACI member institution, I am disheartened by the degree to which teacher preparation programs have been branded villains in the nation’s struggle to reinvent public schools. Yet, as my experiences as Director of ACI’s Center for Success in High-Need Schools attest, the colleges, universities, and the departments of education residing among institutions of private higher education are ready, willing and able to prepare teachers with the knowledge, skills and dispositions to promote the success of our neediest children,
This issue of Success in High-Need Schools highlights the heretofore untapped collaborative capacity of the private colleges and universities responsible for preparing a significant percentage of new teachers for K-12 schools. The eight case studies documented in this issue illustrate the broad spectrum of possibilities for P-20 partnerships aimed at closing the achievement gap between low-income students and their more affluent peers. They focus on the importance of partnership with K-12 schools, intention, classroom dialogue, collaboration across colleges, universities, and rigorous ongoing experience in high-need schools. The results these ACI Center partners have achieved clearly demonstrate that authentic P-20 partnerships can bridge the gap between theory and practice, producing sustainable, scalable solutions to the challenges of high-need schools.
Teacher preparation programs are powerful agents of change, not merely passive residents of an ivory tower. These programs can and should be vehicles of progress that respond to real-world needs and actively seek solutions to our toughest education challenges. The message is simply this: Higher education is not only a place where great minds think great thoughts, generate scholarship, and engage in profound dialogue. It also cultivates critical action to inform public policy and drive institutional change. The eight case studies in this issue illustrate outcomes that have led to transformed preparation programs that build commitment to teach in the neediest schools and share lessons learned and policy implications of those lessons for recruiting, preparing, and retaining excellent diverse teachers. Berberet’s summary of the data collected on each of these case studies adds further support for such P-20 collaborations.
Now place the collaborations described and their suggestions for sustainable and scalable solutions in the new landscape of education in a state — like Illinois — that is on the move and not only encouraging but driving change as the Tomlinson column describes, and you see a bright future for all children. I invite and challenge colleagues across the nation to share the vision and enthusiasm of these authors and their colleges, universities, K-12 schools and state education departments to move from ideas to action.
Author:
Jan Fitzsimmons
Jan Fitzsimmons currently serves both as Director of ACI’s Center for Success in High-Need Schools and as Instructor and Program Administrator for North Central College’s Junior/Senior Scholars Program. She has developed an urban education internship at North Central College, served on a task force and co-chaired a symposium on P-16+ service learning, and is Curriculum Director and Campus Coordinator for ACI’s College Readiness Program. Holding a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Chicago, Fitzsimmons leads program development for ACI’s Center for Success in High-Need Schools, including curriculum design for ACI’s Teacher Induction Academy, Inner-City Practicum, and Diversity at the Blackboard initiatives.