by Karen Theroux

“I look to the diffusion of light and education as the resource to be relied on for ameliorating the condition, promoting the virtue, and advancing the happiness of man.”
—Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson certainly had a way with words, and with philosophy…not to mention architecture. The construction of the academy he designed, which would later become the University of Virginia, was three years underway when Jefferson expressed these sentiments on education. Because he was the designer not only of its classically inspired buildings and grounds, but its enlightened curriculum as well, the institution, founded in 1825, became known as “Mr. Jefferson’s University.” More than 180 years later, it remains one of the most respected institutions of higher learning in the United States.

Educating teachers has traditionally been a central mission of the University of Virginia (UVA), and is associated with some significant firsts: The school of education was established in 1905 by the university’s first official president, for instance, and the first African-American to graduate from the University in 1953 earned a doctorate in education. So it’s not too surprising that when Carnegie Corporation’s education program was seeking exceptional institutions to participate in its groundbreaking program, Teachers for a New Era (TNE), the University was one of the strongest candidates. What was surprising was the vision and creativity TNE engendered in University of Virginia leaders, and the impressive results of their commitment to seeing it succeed in dramatic ways.

Seeking the Key
to Student Achievement
Carnegie Corporation launched Teachers for a New Era in 2001 with one major goal in mind: producing measurably better results in the nation’s classrooms. Extensive research based on thousands of student records in schools across the country had suggested that the teacher is the single most important factor in pupil performance. “The quality of the teacher corps that is produced will largely determine the success or failure of our public education systems and affect the future of our democracy for years to come,” said Carnegie Corporation president Vartan Gregorian. ”If we really want to improve student achievement, we have no choice but to improve teaching.” With additional support from the Annenberg and Ford Foundations, the Corporation set about doing just that.

Step one was to settle on a straightforward approach to the complex challenge of improving teacher performance. According to Daniel Fallon of Carnegie Corporation’s Education Division, the architect of Teachers for a New Era, “The most pressing question in the field for which the research community seeks an answer today is: What specific interventions in the education of teachers are most likely to enable the teacher to bring about learning growth in pupils?” As he explained, “This question assumes that some teachers are more effective than others—an empirical fact, and that the behaviors that make them so can be taught and learned—a hypothesis.”

According to Fallon, there’s solid evidence that having a good teacher three years in a row can trump negative socioeconomic factors. A bad teacher can have the opposite effect. “We know phenomenal teachers exist and we want to support them,” he stressed. Still, “it appears highly unlikely that a single design or analysis will provide a huge gain in our knowledge. Instead, what is needed is a programmatic approach to research in teacher effectiveness and, by extension, to teacher preparation.”

With this strategy in mind, Education Program staff and a prestigious advisory group of experts in the field considered a broad spectrum of institutions that educate teachers, ultimately choosing the University of Virginia and ten other universities with strong existing teacher education programs and the capacity to respond effectively to the challenge of redesigning their teacher education programs with attention to three fundamental principles:

(1) A teacher education program guided by respect for evidence, including pupil learning gains accomplished under the tutelage of graduates of the program;

(2) Faculty in the arts and sciences engaged in the education of prospective teachers, allowing them to develop deep knowledge of more than just the subject they are teaching; and

(3) Education viewed as an academically taught clinical practice profession requiring continuing professional support during the first two full years of teaching.

Through TNE, the Corporation aimed for a radical change in teacher education affecting allocation of resources, academic organization, criteria for evaluating faculty, relationships with practicing schools and more. At the conclusion of the project, each of the chosen institutions was expected to stand out as one of the best programs possible for the preparation of a beginning professional teacher. In short, the objective was nothing less than a new future for teaching and learning throughout the country’s schools.

A Biologist Changes
University Culture
In 2002, the University of Virginia became one of the first round of schools to receive a TNE grant of $5 million over five years.1 While only 124 of the 2,600 new teachers in the state that year were UVA graduates, enrollment in the university’s Curry School of Education had been growing steadily for some time. In addition, the Education School and the College of Arts and Sciences had already established functional linkages, offering a five-year integrated Teacher Education Program leading to a subject matter baccalaureate (B.A.) and a Master of Teaching (M.T.) degree as well as a two-year M.T. option for students who already hold B.As.

Despite its modest numbers, the university aspired to become a Research I
institution dedicated to producing great teachers and to helping set state policy for teacher education reform. “Preparing first-rate K-12 teachers is one of the University of Virginia’s highest goals,“ said Gene Block, vice president and provost. “We are a university with a long historical mission to model excellent educational practice and we are undertaking our work at a time when there are grave doubts about the quality, and equality, of education available to American children.“ Despite what he acknowledged to be an “immense challenge,” Block believed that with a first-rate School of Education, a variety of scholars in Arts and Sciences with longstanding expertise working with teachers and, most important of all, first-rate students, UVA could “do the right thing” to produce the best possible teachers for this generation of pupils. All it would take would be to “bring these strands together.”

Gene Block has a Ph.D. in biology and is recognized for his research on the cellular and neural mechanisms affecting sleep, aging, the brain and the biological clock. As a scientist who serves on numerous advisory boards, Block is well aware of the power of collaboration to stimulate innovation. This was an advantage he wanted to bring to bear to the TNE grant from the beginning. “When I first learned about this opportunity I was intrigued,” Block recalled, “it’s wonderful funding. And it came at a good time for the university when, despite real concerns about teacher education, the state had run out of money to address the issue. At the same time, I was honestly worried about whether we could deliver the real product.”

Next page: To improve the odds, Block instituted a series of faculty seminars designed to raise awareness of assessment techniques and encourage a dialogue between Education and Arts and Sciences faculty (consistent with the second of the three fundamental principles of Teachers for a New Era).

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