Learning First facilitates new approach to teacher training

Just before events in Canberra began dominating the news, a new approach to how teachers are educated before they enter classrooms was taking shape in Melbourne. Representatives of seven education systems from across the world formulated a commitment to reform teacher education. This was not a normal gathering. A commitment was being made by groups that often sit on opposing sides of reform debates. 

Their reasons for coming together are simple enough. First are the problems in our schools. Over the next couple of months about 17,000 new teachers will graduate from 400 teacher preparation courses across Australia. Every year, too many of them are underprepared and feel overwhelmed when they enter classrooms. 

The reasons for this are numerous, but among those continually highlighted are poor connections between schools and universities, resulting in poor feedback loops on how to better develop teachers, and teacher education that focuses on the wrong issues. In addition, there is growing concern that many teachers’ skills in areas such as maths and science and underdeveloped. 

The overall result is a poor outcome for new teachers and worse outcomes for their students. If new teachers are not trained in the right areas, or lack subject knowledge, their students fall further and further behind. Moreover, the underprepared young teacher who went through the poor course will not be hired by the best schools in the leafy suburbs. They will likely end up in schools struggling to serve disadvantaged communities, teaching students who have the most complex needs. So our failures in teacher education reform entrench disadvantage. 

Second, previous government reform efforts created little or no change. Many reports were written, regulation and compliance increased, but they did little to change the way teachers are actually trained. This fed into reform debates that have been incredibly disappointing. 

The problems are talked about freely in private are rarely aired in public. Defensive posturing dominates and quickly denigrates into turf-protection and buck-passing between parties. Some universities and schools blame each over disjointed efforts to develop teachers. Evaluative agencies are often seen to lack teeth. Teacher registration bodies rarely reject applicants others see as underprepared. And everyone blames the federal and state governments for not fixing it all. 

The historical response from federal and state governments has been for each to claim it is the other’s responsibility. This is the context into which teacher education reforms are thrown and it is the reason so many fail. Recent announcements by governments about reforming initial teacher education through more rigorous selection into courses, improved professional experience requirements and strengthened accreditation processes for teacher training providers are all positive moves. But unless the context changes — unless there is greater buy-in to work towards clear objectives of how we want education systems to improve over time — all these reforms will have limited impact. 

A new way is needed to help new teachers and, over time, lift the capacity of every teacher in every classroom. Tired old debates can’t continue. Improving teacher education requires new solutions: new ways of thinking that significantly recast the roles of various actors in teacher education. 

With this hope, systems and international education leaders converged on Melbourne last month to kick off a two-year collaboration to improve teacher education. Learning First, a Melbourne-based education reform organisation supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, brought together teacher educators from Australia (Victoria), Brazil, China, Britain, Finland, South Korea and the US. 

This was not a typical conference. It was a prerequisite for participants to be committed to reforming teacher education in a manner that breaks away from past failures. Education systems could not just send government bureaucrats. Teams had to be designed that included key players; governments worked alongside university providers and key state and national stakeholders 

So organisations that for years have engaged in the usual buck-passing debates are now working together in a committed fashion to lift the status of teachers and their ability to help our children. Bringing disparate groups together is not easy. People don’t change their usual positions easily. But as they work together and start to understand what can be achieved by doing so, people gradually drop their self-interest and focus on the greater good. This has to mean something, so systems had to commit to meaningful change to participate in this reform project. The focus of their reform efforts ranges from better support for new teachers in schools, improved subject-matter knowledge and practical teaching skills in teacher education, to better evaluation of teacher education providers. These reforms have to be developed to maximise the impact across all schools. 

But this is not easy. There are few countries that have managed meaningful reform of teacher education. It is a surprisingly underdeveloped and under-researched area. There is limited common acceptance of what is good teacher preparation; there is little evaluation of graduates, and minimal feedback between employers, schools and teacher educators. Roles and responsibilities between players are often poorly co-ordinated. Meaningful reform therefore requires all actors in the system to change the way they act and interact with each other. 

Much of the debate on reforming teacher education ignores this complexity. Reform attempts regularly fail to deal with the incentives that key players face, meaning they fail to predict how institutions will actually respond to, for example, new regulations or quality-control measures. What is often misunderstood in all areas of public policy — not just education — is that the first step in an evaluation and accountability regime is to start with your objectives. What do we want teacher education to become? How will evaluation help us get there? This requires an understanding of how different actors will react to policy and regulatory changes. For example, a response to increased regulation may involve increased paperwork or crafty avoidance, rather than the intended improvement in quality. Too often we skip thinking about this step and create reform with unintended or negative consequences. 

The key question is therefore which reforms will have the largest impact on changing the actions of actors in teacher education. Which levers will best motivate individual academics to improve the way they prepare new teachers, and what will encourage universities to build the capacity of their staff? Which lever will help schools influence the quality of teacher preparation?