If Teachers Can’t Teach, the Whole Society Flunks

There is no mold for producing perfect public school teachers. Some are gifted, men and women who can transform almost any pupil into a good reader, a competent math student and, perhaps most important, a child eager to learn. But there also are poor teachers who do more harm than good in the classroom. In California, the majority, good and bad, have themselves been educated in the Cal State University teacher training program, which, authorities now say, is in need of an overhaul.

Teaching teachers how to teach is a job for the entire university, not for just the education department. Recognizing the importance of this mission, the Cal State board of trustees has endorsed the recommendations of the Presidents Group on Teacher Preparation and K-18 Education, chaired by Robert C. Maxson, president of Cal State Long Beach.

Maxson and incoming Cal State Chancellor Charles B. Reed, who takes over in March, are committed to a revamped teaching program. Reed, early in his career, taught teacher training and also helped to lead a national performance-based teacher education project. That experience should prove useful as each Cal State campus restructures its teacher training as recommended by the report to emphasize practical instruction, increase the amount of practice teaching and expand collaboration with school districts challenged by fast-growing enrollments, including many students who do not speak English.

Teachers need knowledge, theory and practical skills to excel in the classroom. The best teachers master an academic subject and also develop skills directly related to how children learn. That is the goal of the state’s current approach to teacher training, which requires a student to complete an undergraduate degree in an academic major before taking the classroom training for certification.

The sequence works well in theory. In practice, something is not working; teacher quality is wildly uneven. Many school districts also must depend on unprepared emergency-permit teachers, many of whom need a crash course on how to teach.

California, according to the Cal State presidents report, will need as many as 300,000 new teachers over the next decade. The reforms that Cal State makes will go far to determine their quality.