Mercy's I.C.P. Program Meets the Challenge

Abstract The issues of teacher qualifications and teacher shortages become a crisis when a state raises the requirements for teaching by stopping the practice of issuing temporary licenses, threatening the continued employment of thousands of teachers. The district's need to staff their schools and their desire to retain experienced, though not fully certified, teachers was the impetus for an alternative program involving intensive in-school mentoring, classes scheduled in the districts' schools, and portfolio assessment in lieu of some classroom hours. Background: Teacher Training and Teacher Shortages Our country needs more teachers, and our schools need better-prepared teachers. The demand for change in the teaching profession has been a major issue of on-going concern for the last four decades, at the forefront of educational thought and practice, giving rise to theoretical and practical discussions among educators across the nation seeking applicable solutions. Ideas concerning the possibilities of improving the quality of classroom teaching date as far back as the late 1950's. Koerner (1959) studied the quality of education public schools were giving to its students and made suggestions how to improve the quality of education graduates were receiving. Conant (1967) made recommendations for overhauling public high schools stating that the old methods proved inadequate in the face of an expanding and changing economy. In the 1980's as discussions about adequate high school preparation continued, Coleman (1982) compared student preparation in the private high schools to the public high schools. His findings indicated that the major differences between the two systems were that more discipline problems, a lower average number of academic courses completed by students and a lower number of hours spent on homework occurred in the public schools as compared to the private schools. The Carnegie Forum (1986) called for wide-range improvements in teacher education to address the problems in public education. At the same time The Holmes Group (1986) called for stronger teacher preparation in the liberal arts and moving teacher certification to the master's level. Nine years later The Holmes Group (1995) proposed the idea that professional development of teachers be a partnership between universities and public school systems using applied research. Mercy College, seeking to address these critical issues, came up with an innovative alternative internship model of teacher preparation, a teacher preparation model to meet the needs of uncertified teachers. It was piloted in two Bronx school districts during the September 2002-2003 school year. The program design was for mentors to teach half the research-based courses to uncertified teachers, recommended by their principals, in their respective schools. Retired principals, now Mercy faculty serving as mentors, visited ten teachers on a weekly basis for the 15 week semester to teach each course on a one-to-one basis that culminated in the teacher's submission of a portfolio project. The goal was for teachers to complete their master's degrees in education and to become eligible for New York State Teacher Certification. In an internship program, students who successfully completed half the program became eligible for an Internship Certificate, which changed their status from uncertified to certified teacher. The Mercy I.C.P. Program met the challenge. The Crisis in New York City In 2002 when thousands of New York City's veteran teachers reached retirement age, and many hundreds took advantage of buyouts, the New York City Department of Education was faced with an impending shortage of classroom teachers. Authorities hastened to staff the schools. While some of the newcomers proved to be surprisingly good, too many of the uncertified raw recruits, to the dismay of principals and superintendents, lacked the seasoning and skills of the retirees. …