ESSA unlocks teacher prep innovation
A less-noticed new provision in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) may be critical to unlocking business model innovation in teacher preparation. For decades, voices from both outside and withineducation schools have called for reforms such as greater admissions selectivity, curriculum that is grounded in learning science research, and stronger clinical training in K–12 school settings. But unfortunately, despite the fair amount of consensus regarding needed reforms, schools of education seem to have done little over the last 30 years to fundamentally change their business models to align with suggested reforms.
The reality confronting reformers that too often goes unrecognized is that fundamentally transforming teacher preparation is not merely a matter of improving programs and curriculum. As the Clayton Christensen Institute’s research has shown, real change typically requires new institutional business models. To this end, a new provision in ESSA encourages states to authorize new teacher preparation programs that circumvent the challenges of institutional deadlock.
Overcoming teacher prep programs’ resistance to change
The heart of the challenge of reforming established teacher preparation programs is that their business models discourage change. For example, many reformers call for teacher preparation programs to improve the quality of their outputs through higher admissions standards. But many prestigious institutions, such as Harvard and Yale, where selectivity is the norm across all programs, have either limited the scale of their teacher preparation programs to instead focus on education leadership and academic research, or have eliminated their schools of education altogether. The rankings-focused business models of selective colleges and universities lead them to prioritize higher-status leadership and academic training over the lower-status professional work of training new teachers. In contrast, the business models of non-prestigious state university systems are aligned with producing large numbers of teachers to serve the public good. But these same business models also sideline efforts in improving teacher quality for the sake of maintaining high volumes of graduates and low operational costs in order to provide positive revenue sources for their parent institutions.
Most states’ policies governing teacher preparation reinforce established business models and traditional practices. In order for schools of education to operate legally, issue teaching certificates, and offer their students financial aid, they must demonstrate that they meet the standards set by state departments of education and regional accreditation agencies. Although the standards set by those entities are all well intentioned, they tend to emphasize inputs (such as governance structures, credit hour requirements, and faculty credentials) rather than the quality of their outputs (effective teachers). Thus for established institutions, research and curriculum standards become central priorities because they lead to state authorization, accreditation, and the ability to bring in federal dollars. Meanwhile, these schools inadvertently give secondary priority to efforts to improve teacher quality.
Aligning business models with student outcomes
An alternative way to improve teacher preparation is to build new institutions from the ground up with entirely different business models that are aligned with student outcomes. A few examples of new institutions that have done this include Match Teacher Residency, Urban Teachers, Aspire Teacher Residency, and Relay Graduate School of Education. New ESSA unlocks teacher prep innovation | Brookings Institution: