Pre-Service Teacher Education in the Community College

Abstract

For several years, alarms have been sounding about a shortage of K-12 teachers. Massive impending retirements are claimed: According to Allen (2002), nearly 40% of current teachers will be retired by 2010, although some researchers argue that the extent of anticipated retirements is overstated (e.g., Ingersoll, 2001). retention of younger teachers is definitely a problem. Teaching has a higher drop-out rate than any other profession does, as is partially illustrated by almost 50% of beginning teachers dropping out within their first 5 years (Ingersoll, 2002). A more fine-grained look at teacher shortage reveals that it is most problematic in high-poverty schools in urban and rural areas and in certain teaching areas such as mathematics, science, technology education, special education, and bilingual education. Additionally, there is a shortage of minority teachers at a time when public schools are increasingly filled with minority students (Townsend & Ignash, 2003). As part of its mission to meet the needs of its local community, the community college has become an important player in addressing the current teacher shortage--through both traditional and nontraditional programs designed to increase the supply of teachers. This special issue of the Community College Review examines some of these programs in detail so as to highlight the current role of the community college in pre-service teacher education. However, it is important to understand that this is not a new role for the community college. Rather, in focusing now on teacher education, the community college is returning to its early roots as this account of community colleges in the early 20th century illustrates: A distinctive feature of the institutions was their accessibility to women, attributable to the leading role the colleges played in preparing grammar school teachers. In such states as Missouri, which did not yet require K-8 teachers to have a bachelor's degree, it was common for more than 60 percent of community college students to be women, virtually all of them preparing to be teachers. (American Association of Community Colleges, 2004, para 4) Currently, close to 60% of community college students are women (Phillippe & Sullivan, 2005), although the percentage preparing to be teachers is much smaller. Data on this percentage are not available. However, education is listed as one of the Top 15 For-Credit Hot at Community Colleges in 2004, accounting for 2.2% of all for-credit programs that year (Phillippe & Sullivan, 2005, p. 92). Additionally, among 1999-2000 baccalaureate recipients whose field of study was education, almost 27% first attended a public community college (Phillippe & Sullivan, 2005, p. 93). By the 1960s, when all states required the baccalaureate degree for beginning teachers, the community college had assumed what is now its traditional role in teacher preparation: providing the first 2 years of the baccalaureate. Community college students completing the associate of arts (AA) degree could transfer to a 4-year school to start its teacher education program knowing they had completed all or most of the general education requirements for the degree. Many 2-and 4-year colleges developed institutional articulation agreements designating specific general education courses for students to take at the community college to ensure that they were ready for the 4-year teacher education program. Some agreements even stipulated a few community college teacher education courses that students could take and receive credit for at the receiving institution (Townsend & Ignash, 2003). This traditional role of providing the AA degree is illustrated in part of the content of two articles in this issue: Pipelines: Career Pathways Extending From High School to Community College to University by Debra Bragg and The Impact of a Grant-Funded Project on Selected Community College Teacher Education Programs by Pat Cunniff, Mary Belknap, and Steve Kinholt. …