Edited by Michael Pressley
2002
Established in 1994, the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) program at the University of Notre Dame trains talented college graduates in teaching fundamentals during the summer and then places them in two-year classroom internships at Catholic schools in disadvantaged areas. Edited by Michael Pressley, director of ACE, this volume explains what the program is and how it works. Chapters cover ACE's history, structure, coursework, emphasis on community and spirituality, use of performance assessments, and financing, as well as the experiences of its teachers and its success in recruiting and retaining top-notch undergrads to the teaching field. The text offers an abundance of practical advice for anyone interested in designing an alternative certification program based in an institution of higher education, with two notable exceptions. First, many of the characteristics of the ACE program would be difficult to replicate outside of a Catholic (or, at least, religious) institution. Much of ACE's sense of mission and community derives from its Catholic identity. Second, in order to become accredited, the program mimicked many public-sector programs and relied heavily on Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) and National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) standards and on research on teacher training and effectiveness from the National Council on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF). The directors accepted these guidelines so that their graduates might earn state certification, but it is clear from Pressley's account that these standards are muddled at best. ACE teachers are also evaluated through a portfolio - the NCTAF method for demonstrating competency - despite the fact that such assessments often give little indication of content mastery. ACE attempts to compensate for that danger by requiring that candidates have an undergraduate subject-matter major and take extra summer courses in their field. All in all, this book (ISBN 0-268-02015-9) should benefit those involved or interested in the training of future teachers. You'll find more information at http://129.74.181.111:591/FMPro?-db=webcore&-format=display.html&-lay=view&-sortfield=title&ShowOnWeb=Yes&-op=cn&WebSearch=alternative%20teacher&-max=15&-recid=44490&-find=.
