Some Virginia schools reluctant to take on student teachers

SOME SCHOOLS IN VIRGINIA HAVE declined to work with teachers-intraining, fearing they might decrease student scores on new statewide exams. In February, state delegate Marian Van Landingham (D) called a hearing before the House Education Committee to discuss the problem; she first heard about it from Janet Johnson, dean of the College of Human Resources and Education at Virginia Tech. Along with Johnson, deans from the College of William and Mary, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Christopher Newport University attended the hearing.

"Teachers are worried that they can't handle training a student teacher while trying to prepare their own students for the exams," explains Johnson. Last spring, thousands of students in Virginia took the state's Standards of Learning (SOL) tests for the first time. Each year, students in grades 3, 5, and 8 will take exams in mathematics, English, history, and social science, and high school students will complete tests in eight subject areas. By 2004, high school students will have to answer 60 to 70 percent of the questions correctly on most SOL exams in order to graduate. By 2007, if 70 percent of a school's students fail to pass the exit exams, the school will lose its state accreditation.

Johnson says the hearing helped educate state lawmakers about a disturbing trend. "The success of new teachers," argues Johnson, "is directly related to the amount of time they spend in the classroom." Johnson reports that Virginia Tech found some schools reluctant to place student teachers in high school classrooms in which SOL subjects are taught. To help allay the concerns of schools and teachers, Johnson advocates adopting a "team-teaching" approach. Under current practice, the student teacher, in the last semester before graduation, usually takes over responsibility for the classroom with supervision from a master teacher. Team-teaching, according to Johnson, would benefit everyone involved by encouraging student teachers, who often have knowledge of new scholarship in their fields, to impart that knowledge to their master teachers. In turn, the master teachers would act as mentors, guiding the student teachers in instructional techniques and methods. Johnson reports that although some high schools and teachers in her area hesitated or declined to accept student teachers, Virginia Tech ultimately placed all of its students for the spring semester.

The remarks of U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley, in his annual address on the state of American education, made it clear that the importance of classroom experience for teachers-intraining is recognized nationwide. Just a few days after the Virginia hearing, Riley said, "I urge colleges of education to move swiftly to create many more clinical experiences for their students. Future teachers need to be learning how to teach alongside master teachers."