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Paper: Closing the Achievement Gap Through Teacher Preparation
Adequately Preparing Teachers Requires Training in Diversity Pedagogy
March, 2004
With the passage of the No Child Left Behind act America came to consensus on one point: The achievement gap in American education must be closed. Unfortunately, no consensus exists so far on how to do this and the resulting debate disregards the single most important key to closing that gap — adequately preparing America’s teachers to work with diverse student populations.
The Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence (CREDE), a federally funded research center established in 1996, recommends that policy be changed to incorporate a drastically different pedagogy in all preservice teacher education programs. This pedagogy is not CREDE's invention, but is based on best-teaching practices of master teachers working with diverse students. CREDE researchers, who represent the largest collective of diversity researchers in the country, have standardized and systematized these practices so that they are scalable. This research-validated pedagogy has proven to be effective for all students and essential for minority students.
Why a different pedagogy? Currently, most teachers are trained in and use methods that were created in the early years of the Industrial Age. The result of these archaic methods is evident:
- Students are disengaged and unmotivated and a disconnect exists between teachers and students. This disconnect is greatest between teachers (mostly white and female) and minority students who, according to the U.S. Department of Education, made up nearly 40 percent of the country's student population in 2000. Teachers themselves recognize this disconnect: Eighty percent of teachers polled say they feel ill equipped to teach diverse populations (Futrell & Bedden, 2003).
- The disconnect shows in graduation rates, which are significantly lower for most minority students than for white and Asian students, reaching a 43 percent gap at its worst (Orfield, Losen, Wald & Swanson, 2004).
- Estranged from their students and under increasing pressure to produce
higher test scores, newly credentialed teachers leave the field in hordes
— 46 percent by their fifth year. And low-performing schools have
the highest teacher turnover rate. (NCTAF, 2003)
- Classrooms using CREDE's pedagogy show improved real learning, increased
test scores, more engagement, and more student, teacher, and family
satisfaction. (Tharp et al, 2003)
What does an effective pedagogy look like?
CREDE's pedagogy — a distillation of best-teaching practices for all students and especially minority students — is called the Five Standards for Effective Pedagogy, this methodology:
- engages students by working in small groups with clear academic goals
- stresses language development in all curricula
- emphasizes problem solving and critical thinking
- teaches in contexts relevant to students' lives and involves family and community
- emphasizes dialogue over lecture
This pedagogy contrasts sharply with traditional methods, which stress rote recital and memorization, lecture and worksheet formats, and whole group teaching.
Some universities are experimenting with this transformed teaching model: Brigham Young University, San Jose State University, the University of Louisville, the University of Connecticut, the University of Hawaii, the University of Houston and Bellarmine University. These methods are also being adopted by the ministries of education in Greenland and Taiwan, where education reform efforts are in place.
These efforts are encouraging, but to close the achievement gap every teacher education program must incorporate research-based diversity pedagogy. America has a new demographic; we need a new norm for teacher preparation.
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