ACTE's Industry Connect Blog

Redesigning our CTE Teacher Academy Model: Preparing students for the future educator workforce

Future Teachers of America (FTA) was established in 1936 by the National Education Association. Today, the organization is called Educators Rising and housed under Phi Delta Kappa International. At first, Future Teachers of America clubs functioned as substitute-reserves for local school districts (yes, high schoolers would assume a substitute role and were often paid for their work) while other clubs discussed teaching as a profession. Over time, these clubs evolved into credit-bearing coursework at high schools called the Teacher Academy. Today, these Teacher Academies courses are considered Career and Technical Education (CTE) classes, under the group, or “cluster,” of coursework that explores education & training fields.

When the Teacher Academy course first began over 65 years ago, it had two functions: the first was to introduce high school students to teaching and to help them decide whether they had a desire to enter the profession, and the second was to alleviate the teacher shortage.

But we still have the same problem that existed 65 years ago: there is still a teacher shortage.

Now, for me to say that I expect the Teacher Academy to totally remedy the teacher shortage is unreasonable; there are a variety of reasons it exists. What I am saying, however, is that, if CTE courses are designed to prepare students for future workforces, we should be leveraging the Teacher Academy in a way that sets the stage for the future of the educator workforce; one that motivates students to stay in education, but one that also empowers them to think about, explore, and create what the future educator workforce might look like in their lifetime.

But the curriculum and standards that exist among Teacher Academies are preparing them for what Carole Basile, dean of Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College (MLFTC), calls an untenable job. “In no other profession,” she writes, “is it deemed reasonable to ask all things of all people all the time.”

Through its Next Education Workforce initiative, MLFTC is working with partner schools and districts to redesign how it trains educators.  The college puts teacher candidates in teams and is working with schools to develop teams of in-service teachers. The point of teaming is to deliver better learning to students and to develop better professional experiences for educators. 

It’s time that Teacher Academies started to redesign their approach to teacher preparation, too.

What if we asked Teacher Academy students to engage in an inquiry-driven course, driven by student experiences? What if we redesigned the course to be extraordinarily exploratory, allowing students to think about, create, and design future educator roles besides the classroom teacher? What if we facilitated learning experiences for these Teacher Academy students that pushed them to collaborate on teams to examine educational issues, to innovate solutions, and to approach classroom teaching on teams with one another?

The Teacher Academy is in a position to propel what the future of the education workforce will look like. If we truly want to transform the way America prepares teachers, starting in high school, we need to rethink how we are designing the experiences for the 150,000 students who enroll in CTE education & training programs each year--and we need to do it now.

 

Richard "Lennon" Audrain is a research assistant and graduate student studying technology and education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He also teaches Latin and Spanish at Brookline High School in the Public Schools of Brookline, MA. Lennon earned an MEd in Curriculum & Instruction (Teaching & Learning concentration) from Arizona State University at age 19. After serving as the 2017-2018 National President of Educators Rising, an organization with over 44,000 high school and collegiate members interested in the education profession, he developed research interests in designing and researching both (i) frameworks and practices of and for exploratory teaching courses taught in high schools and (ii) technology for workforce development, specifically the delivery of instructional coaching via digital micro-teaching and micro-learning experiences.

Perkins V As Opportunity

By this point, we are all living in a Perkins V world. Here at Chmura, much of our focus has been on how we can help educators with our unparalleled local labor market data and with a positive, productive experience with the Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (CLNA). We support colleges and school divisions that see the CLNA “as a chance to take an in-depth look and your entire local CTE system.”

That quote comes from ACTE’s “Maximizing Perkins V’s Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment & Local Application to Drive CTE Program Quality and Equity.” In case you missed or forgot about it, this document is one of the finest resources for educators who want to move beyond compliance and use Perkins V to make a real difference in their students’ education. It breaks down each of the CNLA’s six requirements and provides lists of stakeholders to consults, materials to review, and questions to ask to satisfy each requirement.

ACTE suggests that school divisions might capitalize on Perkins V to inspire or reinvigorate local business participation in education. One of the complaints Chmura often hears from business leaders is that their interactions with local school systems tend to be less of an opportunity to shape policy and more of a “dog and pony show” where the school system simply tries to make itself look as good as possible.

How can school divisions break that cycle and foster a stronger relationship with the businesses that will employ their graduates? “Maximize Perkins V” argues that the engagement of local stakeholders that Perkins V requires need not happen only once but can be ongoing. Imagine the quality feedback you could receive from a highly engaged business community that gets into a regular rhythm of monthly meetings engaging on central issues. “Maximize Perkins V” has questions about local labor market conditions, skills gaps, and other issues where the business community can provide critical feedback to improve students’ future outcomes.

Regardless of whether your stakeholder feedback is a one-time thing or ongoing, Chmura recommends presenting them with the data, process documentation, scope and sequence documents, and every other relevant piece of information you collect from Perkins V. An outsider’s perspective is sometimes necessary to fully evaluate the triumphs and challenges in any division’s CTE plan. Who can better tell you whether the gaps in your labor market data reflect the reality that they see than the local business community?

Both ACTE and Chmura believe that the more you invest into the Perkins process, the more you will get out of it. The structure ACTE shares in “Maximize Perkins V” has the potential to unlock a new level of civic participation in education, which will generate rich insights for educators and better outcomes for students.

 

Dr. Bryan Shelly is the Senior Strategist for Talent & Education for Chmura Economics and Analytics, a company that assists schools with labor market data, Perkins V, and other research-related services. Prior to joining Chmura, Bryan was an administrator for Chesterfield County Public School and the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and an assistant professor at Wake Forest University.