On Behalf of Teaching Teachers

Heads of 37 colleges and universities have urged their colleagues in the higher-education world to work harder at the business of teaching teachers. In an open letter to other college presidents they recommended less griping about the students whom they receive and more involvement in preparing those students, with the hope that they might eventually become teachers themselves.

The university presidents, led by Stanford University’s Donald Kennedy, got together last month to assess their role in response to the Carnegie Forum report on improving teacher preparation. Other California educators who signed the letter were the heads of Cal State campuses at Bakersfield and Sacramento and the chancellor at UC-Santa Barbara.

“It simply will not do for our schools to produce a small elite to power our scientific establishment, and a larger cadre of workers with the basic skills to do routine work,” their letter said. “Millions of people around the world now have these same basic skills and are willing to work twice as long for as little as one-tenth our basic wages. To maintain and enhance our quality of life, we must develop a leading-edge economy based on workers who can think for a living.”

Teaching students to think requires teaching teachers new techniques or helping those who already know the techniques to work more effectively within school systems. The college leaders said that they must work more closely with local school districts, bringing top teachers to the campuses and sending university faculty members into the schools.

They must concentrate on increasing the number of minority teachers. They pledged to hire more minority faculty members themselves and to work with two-year colleges having concentrations of minorities to move students into four-year schools, especially into teaching programs.

The letter warned that, to be credible, universities would have to be “seriously committed to the improvement of teaching in our own houses” as well as in the public schools. Undergraduates are not going to go into teaching in the numbers that are needed until they see that it is a valued profession. And, the college presidents added, they won’t believe that until they see good teaching in their own classes. The presidents pledged to “assign clear and positive value to teaching across our institutions,” not just in schools of education.

The Carnegie Forum report last year outlined a plan for improving teaching. The college presidents have tried to match the plan with some promises. On their ability to deliver rests much of the chance for success of education reform efforts.