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August 27, 2008

Training and retaining high-quality teachers

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[Transcript]

ATLANTA –Each year, Georgia’s schools require 14,000 new teachers, a figure that will only continue to increase as baby boomers retire and communities expand. The Georgia General Assembly recently created a committee to study teacher recruitment, preparation and retention programs. Randy Kamphaus, College of Education Dean at Georgia State University, will speak to lawmakers Wednesday (Aug.27), explaining the initiatives currently underway at the university to meet this growing need.

KAMPHAUS: Simply producing teachers will never be adequate for a growth state like Georgia. We have to do a better job of retaining our teachers, nurturing them and making sure they stay in the field for longer periods of time, and certainly, one or two years is not a long period of time. We train extremely talented teachers, we know their credentials are good and it’s a shame that we cannot keep them in the schools longer and we’re trying to address that directly. (length:0:27)

That’s why Georgia State’s College of Education started the Professional Development School, Partnerships Deliver Success program, which is currently in 20 schools in the metro Atlanta area. The program places Georgia State faculty members and pre-service teachers in high-need schools to help increase student achievement and meet strategic school goals. The program also helps retain teachers through cross-career learning communities where educators can mentor and support one another.

KAMPHAUS: These communities serve as support systems, acclimation systems and problem solving systems for new and experienced teachers. We have seen major reductions in the teacher attrition rate over a two-year period. So for example, in one school there were 18 teachers that left last year in this particular middle school. And this year, only one teacher left. This is a school where we’ve instituted the cross career learning community approach. We find it very promising, we’re trying to scale it up and we think it’s potentially a good model for the state, if not the region or the nation. (length: 0:39)

Training high quality teachers is still a major priority for Georgia State University. The College of Education and College of Arts and Sciences work collaboratively to prepare teachers with top-level teacher training and content area knowledge. The majority of Georgia State’s teacher education programs are four years in length, including an undergraduate early childhood education program, which just saw an enrollment jump of 30 percent. The College of Education is working to expand its other bachelor degree offerings this year.

KAMPHAUS: We also have a new program coming online, a bachelor’s degree program in birth to five-teacher certification. The bachelor’s degree program is just beginning but we have high hopes for that one. And we are re-instituting next fall, a bachelor’s degree program in middle school education. So for the birth through middle school populations, we have four-year programs. (length 0:26)

The College of Education is the number one producer of teachers from underrepresented groups in the state and is ranked 12th nationally. Kamphaus continues to improve on that statistic. He is also working on recruiting students from the science, technology, engineering and math fields.

KAMPHAUS: We’re trying to establish partnerships with other institutions to enlarge the number of students in teacher education. One of our newly instituted partnerships is with the Georgia Institute of Technology, where we are allowing their students to take some teacher certification area courses at the undergraduate level, prior to entering the Masters of Arts in Teaching program, thus expediting their entry into teaching. (length: 0:29)

For Georgia State RadioLine, this is Liz Babiarz.