Alliance for Excellent Education June 2004
The Alliance for Excellent Education is the source of this 80-page report that advocates the use of "comprehensive teacher induction" as a way to attract and retain high quality teachers. According to the authors, "there is growing consensus that the single most important factor in determining student performance is the quality of the teacher" and "if the national goal of providing equitable education . . . is to be met, it is critical that efforts be concentrated on developing and retaining high quality teachers." As a means to that end, the report promotes "comprehensive teacher induction," which includes "high quality mentoring, common planning time, ongoing professional development, [and access to] an external network of teachers," but is emphatically not, among other things, "a crash course in teaching, an orientation session, or a stand-alone mentor program." Unfortunately, as the authors admit, "the benefits of comprehensive induction have been hard to evaluate, leaving few studies and little evidence on the true value of induction," and thus they rely on the work of one researcher, Anthony Villar, to argue the merits of taking this approach nationwide. While Villar's findings are certainly enough to justify further study and experimentation with different models of induction, we have to wonder why the report's authors don't forthrightly take on the failings of traditional certification. After all, if the present system has such shortcomings, why not rework it from the ground up - and open teaching to professionals from non-traditional backgrounds while we're at it? If you are interested in learning more about induction, click here.
