Preparing Teachers to Work With Families

Recently, Secretary Duncan released a call for colleges of education to improve the way they prepare educators to teach students. Secretary Duncan noted that we will need to "hire up to 200,000 first-time teachers annually over the next five years." In his press release, he pointed out that currently colleges of education are not doing an adequate job of preparing teachers for "the realities of the 21st century classroom." Secreatry Duncan calls for the universities preparing our future teachers to "ensure that new teachers master the content of the subjects they’ll teach and they will have well-supported field-based experiences embedded throughout their preparation programs. Their ultimate goal should be to create a generation of teachers who are focused on improving student achievement and ready to deliver on that goal."

I commend Secretary Duncan for taking a bold stand for children by calling out the universities that leave our teachers unprepared. However, I believe he forgot the most important missing link, family engagement. Most colleges of education do not offer future teachers any preparation at all to work with families and engage them in their children's learning. We have more research on family engagement than ever before and the results only confirm what we already know. When families are engaged in their children's education students perform better, have fewer behavior problems, and graduate on time. What we also know is that the most effective type of family engagement is what happens in the home. To truly improve the educational outcomes of our students, Secretary Duncan should call on our colleges of education to better prepare teachers to work with families and give them the help that they need to be more engaged in their children's education.

For more information on Secretary Duncan's remarks, read them at www.ed.gov