Support for Teacher Quality: An AFT Priority

Abstract

Public attention to the issue of teacher quality has never been higher in the United States. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) continues to play a leading role in all areas related to teacher quality-from recruitment, preparation, licensure, induction, and professional development, to evaluation and teacher compensation. This article highlights some of the major efforts the union has undertaken to ensure that a qualified teacher is in every classroom throughout the nation. In 1996, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future issued a report declaring that if the United States is to reach its goal of preparing all students to meet world-class achievement standards, excellent teaching must be education's number-one priority. The report rested on three unassailable premises: (1) What teachers know and can do is the most important influence on what students learn; (2) Recruiting, preparing, and retaining good teachers is the central strategy for improving schools; and (3) School reform cannot succeed unless it focuses on creating the conditions in which teachers can teach and teach well. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) believes that teachers' unions have an important role to play in assuring teacher quality at all of the stages along the teacher development continuum. They must be involved in developing and implementing quality preservice education programs as well as licensure standards and recruitment and hiring practices that assure the perpetuation of an excellent, diverse teacher work force. They must also participate in the creation and support of strong induction and mentoring programs, high-quality professional development efforts, meaningful evaluation processes, and, when necessary, fair and timely intervention and dismissal procedures for those teachers already in the classroom. Many AFT affiliates around the country have already adopted these roles and are busy trying to fulfill them. This article describes several local and nationwide AFT initiatives and partnerships aimed at assuring 21st-century teacher quality along a developmental continuum. ASSURING QUALITY ALONG THE TEAcHER DEVELOPMENT CONTINUUM Preservice Education In 1998, Sandra Feldman, president of the AFT, appointed a special task force to consider how elementary and secondary (K-12) AFT leaders might better work with each other and with those in the higher education community to improve preservice teacher education. That task force looked into issues related to raising the standards for entry into teacher education, defining the core pedagogy curriculum for teacher candidates, and identifying the features of excellent clinical preparation for the classroom. AFT affiliates work with policymakers and the higher education community to strengthen teacher education. Not only do AFT leaders advocate at the state and local levels for specific policies and programs related to teacher education, licensure, and continuing professional development, but many of the union's K-12 affiliates have created partnerships with local colleges and universities. One of the goals of these partnerships is to strengthen the preservice clinical program through the creation of professional development schools and through linking practicing teachers to the university academic setting. In collaboration with the University of Cincinnati (UC) and the Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS), the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers (CFT) has formed a partnership committed to enhancing teacher preparation, classroom performance, and professional development as a means of raising student achievement in the Cincinnati public schools, As a result of this partnership, the University of Cincinnati has redesigned its teacher preparation program to emphasize content-area study. UC students can now earn dual degrees in education and in the arts and sciences after completing a fifth full-year of clinical training in a Professional Practice School (PPS). …