After a lengthy debate, Rhode Island’s regulations on alternative certification of teachers became competitive with other states as the Board of Regents voted to approve new regulations that for the first time allow programs like Teach for America and The New Teachers Project to apply for approval to operate in Rhode Island. These programs have been fabulously successful in other states, but unfortunately until this month they were banned from Rhode Island. Our previous alternative certification regulations failed to certify more than four teachers in four years and they blocked those without five or more years of work experience (like TFA corps members) from participating. This led to a remarkable “brain drain” of talent lost to other states: last year Brown University sent more of its graduating seniors into Teach for America than to any other single private sector employer. Yet every one of these nearly 40 young teachers were forced to leave the state because Rhode Island did not allow alternative certification programs like TFA to operate here.
Now that the regulatory hurdle is gone, the challenge turns to execution. Districts that need programs like TFA are urbans like Providence and Central Falls, but they have near-zero attrition, meaning there are no entry-level teaching positions available for TFA corps members to fill. Take Central Falls, with about 330 teachers — more than 200 are at Step 10 and there is not a single new (Step 1) teacher in the entire district! So, despite strong interest from Superintendents Brady (Providence), Gallo (Central Falls) and others in hiring TFA corps members to teach in their low-income schools, challenges remain in creating slots for entry-level teachers like those from TFA. Urban schools retain staff based on seniority rather than merit, choosing for example to layoff or “bump” Providence’s teacher of the year recently because he lacked the requisite seniority. Enabling districts to hire and retain great teachers based on their effectiveness in the classroom is a new concept that is gaining ground in cities like Washington DC, where Superintendent Michelle Rhee was featured on the cover of this week’s Time Magazine.
Another challenge: we must convince Teach for America to expand here. Their program has become such a successful national model (frequently mentioned in President Elect Obama’s speeches when he talks of “recruiting an army of new teachers”) that other communities actually compete to attract the program. Rhode Island must convince programs like Teach for America that operating in the Ocean State makes sense. To do this, we’ll need to build on the early support and encouragement for these programs from Johnson & Wales University and Brown University, who both have expressed interest in partnering with TFA in Rhode Island, as well as build support within RIDE and our urban school districts.
Many parents, teachers, principals and community leaders came out to testify in favor of alternative teacher certification, but several opposed it vehemently. At one public hearing, Larry Purtill of the NEARI union was joined by Jimmy Parisi of the AFT union in opposing the program. The idea that we should be doing everything we can to recruit our nation’s best and brightest to the field of teaching was lost on these union bosses, but more disturbing was the lack of leadership demonstrated by Rhode Island College’s new President, Nancy Carriuolo, who used to the opportunity of the public hearing to defend her institution’s monopoly on the teacher supply in this state and fight the concept of competition from alternative programs like Teach for America by dismissing their effectiveness. She was joined in her defense of the status quo by the Dean of URI’s education department, Dr. David Byrd. In contrast, the Chair of Brown’s Education Department, Dr. Ken Wong, supports alternative certification and is eager to partner with TFA, as is Johnson and Wales, which met recently with Teach for America to explore compatibility with their own teaching programs. Rhode Islanders should be proud of the efforts universities like JWU and Brown are making to attract national best practice programs like TFA to our state.
Sorry to have to correct you but the regulatory hurdle(s) is NOT gone from Rhode Island which seems to get in its own way all the time. One step forward, two steps backward. The New Teacher Project evidently has so many specific restrictions dictated from the Board of Regents (according to the office administrators at the Project) that unless one has majored in math or engineering, one can never be qualified to teach any math at any public school in this state. They have gone so far as to eliminate architects with masters degrees, high grades in math and structures, and willingness to serve in needy urban schools. So, what could have been a good idea and an innovative initiative, is again “rhodeislandized” and merely supports the established mediocrity ingrained so deeply….and for so long.
Actually, there are no such restrictions imposed by the Board of Regents regulations, we made sure of it, and we were very deliberate about that. The limitations you speak of are limitations that The New Teacher Project decided to place in their program design. If they submit a new program proposal without those restrictions in place, I am confident RIDE would approve it. At the time The New Teacher Project initially designed and submitted its program for approval, the Regents had not yet passed the new regulations and thus they may have put these inappropriate restrictions in place in anticipation of a bad, limiting regulation. However, the regulations have no such restrictions - I fought hard to eliminate them. If someone from TNTP tells you otherwise, they are misinformed — instruct them to email me at angus.davis@gmail.com for clarification. Thanks.