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Teacher Development for College and Career Readiness




Goal: Current and prospective teachers will understand English language arts and mathematics college-readiness standards well, including both the curriculum and the performance level that the standards embody. Teachers will also understand how to teach these standards in ways that ensure that their students meet these levels.

Too few high school graduates are well prepared for college or career training, and state leaders and policy-makers often do not recognize the size and nature of the readiness problem. Solving this problem is complex and requires navigating many educational issues on a statewide level. One of the most important components of a state’s efforts to increase college and career readiness is to ensure that all teachers teach the college- and career-readiness standards effectively.

Critical role of the teacher and teacher development:
Students become ready for college and career training through carefully planned and guided instruction. Because all teachers must have a cognitive understanding of the state’s college- and career-readiness standards and how to engage their students to learn at high levels, college readiness needs to be part of both teacher preparation (pre-service) and professional development (in-service). With the development and integration of college-readiness standards into common core standards, teachers, particularly those in grades 8-12, must acquire a clear understanding of the new college- and career-readiness state standards and how these might differ from other curriculum standards in both substance and performance level.

  • Teachers in the classroom will need explicit definitions of the content and performance expectations and states will need professional development programs to deliver this understanding uniformly statewide.
  • Future teachers need to master the appropriate knowledge and skills to teach college- and career-readiness standards, and teacher preparation programs across the state will likely need to make changes to their curriculums and instructional practices to ensure that prospective teachers graduate with these skills.


SREB Tools to Help States Adopt a College- and Career-Readiness Agenda


SREB’s model college- and career-readiness agenda provides six interrelated and essential components to consider in developing a statewide college- and career-readiness initiative:
 
  • Statewide college- and career-readiness standards.
  • Assessment of state adopted standards with qualifying scores denoting readiness.
  • Modification of public school curriculum to align with standards.
  • Public higher education assurance that standards will be used for college placement.
  • Statewide professional development plans for teachers to implement standards.
  • State accountability programs adoption of college- and career-readiness standards.

With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, SREB is providing technical assistance to several southern states to accelerate progress in college and career readiness, including teacher development. This work will include identifying the types of pre-service and in-service activity needed to develop teachers’ understanding of the readiness standards, their impact on course content, performance expectations for students, and their usefulness in classroom instruction.

SREB’s upcoming report with findings from SREB's National Survey on Teacher Development for College- and Career-Readiness Standards, collected information on college- and career-readiness efforts and subsequent teacher development across the nation. SREB staff developed and electronically distributed the survey to three education-sector professionals in each of the 50 states. The survey examined:
  1. The status of college- and career-readiness standards in the states.
  2. The anticipated impact of the national Common Core State Standards on pre-service and in-service teacher education.
  3. The nature of current and anticipated teacher development activities related to college- and career-readiness standards.
  4. Current state policies concerning teacher development activities related to college- and career-readiness standards.
  5. Potential challenges to providing teacher development on college- and career-readiness standards.
The report analyzes survey results and concludes there is a need to define college and career readiness across the nation. Also, few states have professional development or teacher preparation modules or guidelines designed specifically on college- and career-readiness standards.

Click on a blue state below to see the work under way on English and math teacher development for transitional courses:

Texas Oklahoma Louisiana Arkansas Mississippi Florida Tennessee Alabama Georgia Kentucky South_Carolina North_Carolina Virginia West_Virginia Delaware MarylandStatesMap





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