Third in Series of Reports on First-Year Teachers Identifies Two Insufficient Areas of Training: Teaching in Diverse Classrooms and Working with Special-Needs Students

Smaller Class Size Would Ameliorate Both Challenges, New Teachers Say

New York City – Public Agenda and the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality today released research that points to two specific areas where teacher training may be lacking, according to rookie teachers in the trenches and fresh from training: preparedness for the diversity of the contemporary American classroom and teaching students with special needs.

Seventy-six percent of new teachers said that teaching an ethnically diverse student body was covered in their training.But only 39 percent say that their training in this area helps them a lot now that they are in the classroom, which puts their evaluation of the effectiveness of this aspect of their training near the bottom of the list of subjects the new teachers had studied.The survey covered 12 areas of teacher training ranging from direct instruction to their study of history, philosophy and policy debates in public education.No other factor examined in the Public Agenda research showed nearly as great a gap between how many received training in a given area and new teachers' assessments of the effectiveness of said training.

This final report of the "Lessons Learned" series, "Teaching in Changing Times" focuses on the strengths and possible deficits of the training new teachers say they receive.The new report and complete questionnaire are available to media prior to release at: http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned3

The first report in the "Lessons Learned" series (http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned1) described the differences between the views and experiences of new secondary and elementary teachers. The second looked at the views of teachers coming into the field from three prominent alternate route programs (http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned2).

Sabrina Laine, Director of the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, which commissioned and helped to design the research said, "The 'Teaching in Changing Times' report illustrates the gap between teacher training and the realities of the classroom when it comes to teaching diverse populations and students with special needs. A highly effective teacher workforce starts with quality preparation and needs to be bolstered with good induction and mentoring programs for new teachers. The TQ Center just introduced an online discussion forum to address special education teacher preparation and also provides other resources to support beginning teachers."

Many new teachers also reported inadequacies in the training they received for teaching children with special needs.Most new teachers (82 percent) say their training in had covered this aspect of teaching, but only 47 percent say their training helps a lot.This is a particularly important area for training, the report notes, because nearly every new teacher reported having at least some children with special needs in their classroom – only 5 percent reported having no students with special needs.

"These subjects are being taught in teacher training," said Public Agenda Executive Vice President and Director of Education Insights Jean Johnson. "But apparently large numbers of new teachers still enter their classrooms feeling unprepared."

The entire "Lessons Learned: New Teachers Talk About Their Jobs, Challenges and Long-Term Plans" series is online at: http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned.

SUBURBAN SURPRISE

The anxiety about dealing with diverse classrooms – the sense of being unprepared and untrained in this area – is greater among new teachers in more upscale communities.Most new teachers working in both high-needs and in wealthier schools say they were taught how to teach in an ethnically diverse student body, but new teachers who work in high-needs schools are significantly more likely to say that their training does, in fact, help them, with nearly half (47 percent) saying that their training helps them a lot. By contrast, less than a third (32 percent) of the new teachers in more affluent schools find their training in this area helpful.

TRAINING IS OTHERWISE "COMPREHENSIVE AND USEFUL"

Experts and school critics have sometimes attacked teacher-training programs for being out of touch with reality, but many first-year teachers do not agree.They report that their training covered a wide number of topics from teaching specific subject areas to knowing how to manage a classroom and maintain discipline.

Ninety-two percent say their training included coursework on children's cognitive, emotional and psychological development and roughly half (49 percent) find it to be helpful in the classroom.When it comes to direct instruction, of the 84 percent who learned the technique in training, 68 percent say it helps them a lot now.And on classroom management and discipline, large majorities (78 percent) said their training addressed the subject, with 58 percent reporting that their training was helpful.

EVERYONE WANTS SMALLER CLASSES

The challenge of diverse classrooms is also reflected in the judgments new teachers make about what would really help them improve teaching and student learning.The researchers presented new teachers with a list of 14 proposals to improve teacher quality.Two items topped the list and were significantly ahead of all the others.Seventy-six percent of new teachers say reducing class size would be very effective at improving teacher quality, and 63 percent say the same about preparing teachers to meet the needs of a diverse classroom.

The first edition of the "Lessons Learned" series ("They're Not Little Kids Anymore: The Special Challenges of New Teachers in High Schools and Middle Schools") reported that, for strong majorities of the new teachers regardless of their grade level, the same two items topped their list of recommendations for improving the profession overall.In the second edition of the series, focusing on the experiences of teachers who come to teaching through alternate routes rather than traditional university teacher training programs ("Working Without a Net"), both new alt-route teachers and new traditionally-trained teachers placed smaller class size at the very top of their reform wish list, and there was substantial interest in beefing up preparation to teach in ethnically diverse schools and classrooms.

Methodology

The findings in Issue 3 of "Lessons Learned: Teaching in Changing Times" are based a national survey of 641 first-year teachers. Interviews were conducted between March 12 and April 23, 2007. It included 111 items covering issues related to teacher training, recruitment, professional development and retention. The study explored why new teachers come into the profession, what their expectations are and what factors contribute to their desire to either stay in teaching or leaving it. The margin of error is plus or minus four percentage points; it is higher when comparing percentages across subgroups. Full survey results can be found at http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned.

________________

PUBLIC AGENDA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to nonpartisan public policy research and civic engagement. Founded in 1975 by former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Daniel Yankelovich, the social scientist and author, Public Agenda is known for its influential public opinion surveys and balanced citizen education materials. Its mission is to inject the public's voice into crucial policy debates.Public Agenda seeks to inform leaders about the public's views and to engage citizens in discussing complex policy issues.It is also known for its destination web site, www.PublicAgenda.org, which has been twice nominated (in 2005 and 2007) for a Webby Award for best political site.

THE NATIONAL COMPREHENSIVE CENTER FOR TEACHER QUALITY is a national resource to which the regional comprehensive assistance centers, states, and other education stakeholders turn for strengthening the quality of teaching—especially in high-poverty, low-performing, and hard-to-staff schools—and for finding guidance in addressing specific needs, thereby ensuring highly qualified teachers are serving students with special needs. The TQ Center, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, is a collaborative effort of Education Commission of the States, ETS, Learning Point Associates, and Vanderbilt University.All three reports and other information on supporting teacher preparation an all aspects of the teacher's career continuum can be found at www.tqsource.org