When a problem arises in the US count on two phenomena to follow: 1. public outcry with its omnipresent indignation leading to 2. finger pointing. When a problem involves any aspect of governmental oversight count on one more unfailing phenomenon: regulations will fly! Is this true? Follow the cries and finger pointings of these current problems –

• Children in the US are not academically competitive with children in other nations.
• There is a gap in academic achievement between white children from middle class and affluent families and the achievement of children of color and children living in poverty.
• As a profession, teacher candidates graduating from college represent the lower 50% of undergradate GPAs.
• Higher education is unable to correct or strengthen its failed teacher preparation programs.
• If nothing is done to correct the above problems, the economic power of the US will deteriorate even further from its glory as world leader.
• And, the USDE is releasing a 400+ page set of regulations that, in a nutshell, apply No Child Left Behind strategies to teacher preparation programs.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2014/11/ed_dept_teacher-prep_regulatio.html?intc=es

And, as a result of the work results of this dotted line scenario, the academic competence of all school children in the US will be significantly improved.

Hide the spoons to prevent self-gagging! Einstein’s bones are bouncing in his box as once again we apply our usual and failed strategies expecting successful results.

When so many turn their heads with educational jealousy to the new leaders of international academic competitions, namely Finland, Singapore, Shanghai, and the Netherlands, why aren’t we also turning our eyes for solutions to the international leaders in vocational training? We read of the poor comparisons between our teachers and those in Finland, between the spoiled work ethic of children in the US compared with their peers in India and China, and failure of US schools to prepare high school graduates for trades-work that is an economic mainstay in industrialized nations. Now, we read of the US Department of Education’s indictment of teacher preparation programs to be improved by high stakes, performance for federal grants regulations. If, as the USDE asserts, this national problem can be remedied with better teacher preparation, why don’t we look to the German apprenticeship program for a better idea? The training system that creates the skill sets to design and produce Porsches and BMWs must be doing something right!

http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/A-Bud/Apprenticeship-Programs.html

Using a backwards design approach, applying the German apprenticeship approach to talented teacher development would look like this.

7. All children are taught by highly qualified teachers using the best of teaching practices.

6. A school district hires a highly trained, job-proven teacher with whom the district is professionally invested – district success and teacher success are inexorably tied to each other.

5. The apprentice-teacher learns teaching practices from a combination of college courses and on-the-job instruction and applies and refines these practices as a classroom teacher in the school district.

4. The school district and college preparation program co-opt each other. The district will pay a salary to the apprentice-teacher to learn on the job and the preparation program will dually credit the student-apprentice for learning on the job and in the program.

3. An apprentice teacher simultaneously is a full-time teacher-in-training working in the school classrooms and a full-time student in a college teacher preparation program.

2. The school district creates contacts with potential teacher candidates during their freshman and sophomore years in college for the purpose of pre-screening and building future working relationships.

1. The school district begins a teacher candidate recruitment strategy five to six years in advance of hiring a new teacher.

Now, in a forward design mode. The inculcation of a highly trained and job ready first-year teacher into a school culture and its educational expectations is too important to languish with the educated “hunches” of HR personnel and school administrators. Their track record is too much like a baseball scout trying to divine the productivity of a hot prospect who appears to have all of the baseball skills. In truth, neither the HR people and administrators nor the scout know if they have picked a winner.

So, why guess at the success of a new hire? Instead, hand train your successor teachers through an apprentice program. Every apprentice cum teacher will be classroom-proven in the district’s own schools for employment in those schools.

There is a second level of benefit to an apprenticeship approach to teacher development. A school district expends considerable time and resources in recruiting, orienting, providing initial educator mentoring, and supervising through a probationary period. Too often, as national statistics prove out, a high percentage of new teachers leave teaching within the first three years of their early career. Teaching is not what they expected it to be. Or, children and classroom management is more difficult than imagined. It is probable that the cost of constant teacher replacement offsets much of the cost of an apprentice’s on-the-job salary.

Why isn’t your local school district using an apprentice program already? That’s a simple answer. Because no one else is. Apprenticeships break the mold of past and current practices. They disturb the age old system that the USDE says is not working but wants to fix through sanctions. If some school district instituted an apprenticeship program, it would be difficult to contain the good news.

However, apprenticeship-teacher preparatory programs require time, money and commitment. Because they are by their structure a work in progress, a school district and teacher preparatory institution would need to commit to a five or six year scheme. This is not easy for either party that has operated for decades if not centuries on “you accredit your undergraduate, we’ll recruit and hire them.” And, how has that worked out?

Additionally, apprentice-teacher programs are not easy because the school district must pay an apprentice a salary for on-the-job training. In a world of taxpayer oversight, levying for apprenticeship funding would make the program a year-by-year proposition.

Finally, the district, teacher preparatory program and apprentice must make a commitment to each other. The culture of young adults in the US is even less commitment oriented than our institutions. Most undergraduates change their major at least once while in college. Most undergraduates take five or six years to complete a four-year degree program. And, contemporary thinking is that a young adult will change vocations at least six times before retirement. From the institutional side, new standards or educational mandates will be implemented during the apprentice’s on-the-job training years. How can the district be sure that their trained apprentice will match with as-yet-unknown mandates of the future?

All this said, is what the USDE proposes a better solution? Only if you believe that hitting a frog with a stick will turn it into a prince (or princess)! Let’s create a United States teacher apprenticeship program and produce academically successful graduates prepared to drive equally well produced Porsches.