Returning to the Schools

Christopher A. Bogden is a PhD candidate at Harvard's Graduate School of Education. Like most students at the school--where the average student age is 31-Bogden came from the work world, after directing a school for functionally illiterate drop-outs in Baltimore, Md.

Bogden says he came to the Ed School in 1981 as a respite from the pressures of his job, and to explore the more theoretical aspects of education. "I wanted to acquaint myself with some more cerebral ideas, to get an exposure to the broad spectrum of issues that the Ed School focused on, like labor relations, computers in education, historical perspectives on education and politics and education."

But in three years since Bogden left the real world of school teaching, the Ed School has moved in exactly the opposite direction from Bogden--closer to schools, in order to relate its scholarly expertise more directly to the pragmatic issues of teaching.

Criticized by some over the last decade for being divorced from the realities of running schools, the Ed School is now embarking on several new projects. These include the development of a center to train scientists in industry as school-teachers, a program where principals learn how to manage their institutions better and a host of other efforts aimed at improving school leadership.

"I see some very healthy signs that concern for schools and school improvement is becoming part of the fabric around here," says Senior Lecturer Roland S. Barth. Barth directed a 1979 study of the Ed School which criticized the school for cutting its teacher certification program in 1973 as well as its programs for certifying principals and superintendents.

But the school's long-standing image as primarily a scholarly research institution--concerned with everything from the psychological and political perspectives on education--has begun to change with the introduction of the nuts-and-bolts programs.

"There's no question about the fact that we want to pay more attention to teaching people how to teach," says Ed School Dean Patricia A. Graham.

Retraining Scientists as Teachers

In its first year, the Ed School's fledgling Mid-Career Math-Science Program has attracted five students and much national attention. One student is a retired Army colonel with an advanced nuclear engineering degree who made $50,000 a year in business. Another is a woman who came from the booming high-tech industry of optical photography. Two others were engineers in industrial research.

After one year of course work and internships in local schools, the students will earn masters' degrees certifying them s high school math and science teachers. Next year they will be in teaching positions paying them no more than $18,000.

"The idea behind the program is to take people who are already good at math or science and help them become teachers," says the program's director, Katherine M. Merseth.

A 1983 Department of Education report charged that the United States suffers a "severe shortage of qualified mathematics, science and technology teachers."

But "Harvard is not going to solve the shortage of qualified teachers. The program is kept small for a purpose. People in the middle of a career change need quality instruction and individual counselling," Merseth adds.

The program will triple in size next year, and more than 25 other universities have expressed interest in starting up similar programs. According to Merseth, George Washington University, Rutgers, and the University of California at Berkeley have all limited planning for mid-career masters programs.

"If other institutions start doing this--turning out very small, high-quality classes of certified teachers--it could make a big difference," Merseth says. "The goal of the program is to establish a model for other institutions to copy."

Anthony L. Copas worked as a senior research engineer in a Boston chemical plant, making more than $30,000 a year, but he decided to join the Ed School program because "I spent seven years in industry and found myself moving farther and farther from science. I wanted to get back to it, and do something meaningful with my life," he says.

Tuition at the Ed School now runs $8320 a year for masters students and Copas says that forfeiting his salary and playing tuition "have been a shock to my financial structure. I have loans to pay as a result."

But in his decision to change careers, Copas says money "wasn't the all-powerful, all-driving force. I think I can be a good teacher, and the nation needs good math and science teachers."

A Place for Principals

"For a guy who's been in education for 30 years, I was starting to run out of gas. The Principals' Center was the juice I needed," says John E. Oser, principal of a Falmouth, Mass. elementary school.

More than 550 principals from across the country have joined the center at the $120 membership price, and anywhere from 10 to 100 participate in the center's weekly events, which include workshops, discussions and lectures geared toward improving school supervision.

"We hope to further the profession growth of the practicing principal, because principals who are learning and growing will be more effective school leaders," says Kenneth S. Haskins, one of the center's co-directors.

Oser, who made the two-and-a-half-hour drive from Falmouth every week last year to attend the center's events, calls the center an "educational marketplace. When I come back to Falmouth I try to generate the same kind of excitement about the ideas to the other administrators and principals in my district."

The Principals' Center came about as a key recommendation of Barth's report, but members emphasize that although the Ed School founded and houses the program, it is run for the most part by the principals themselves.

"Harvard set up the opportunity for us to get together," says Alvin V. Fortune, principal of Brookline's Pierce School. "Initially we might have been apprehensive about Harvard's role in the program, but we aren't anymore"

School Leadership

In addition to these two ventures, the Ed School has initiated a variety of smaller programs, including:

* A Master's concentration in Schooling and School Leadership. The one-year program--which does not lead to teacher certification--is designed for students interested in school administration and more effective teaching methods. The Ed School added a cluster of new courses this fall for the new degree.

* Summer workshops for writing and social studies instructors to improve their teaching skills.

* A program known as the Ed-Tech Center, funded by a $7.7 million Department of Education grant. The center studies how computers and other technology can be used to improve teaching of math and science.

* A Committee on Schooling, which since its founding last summer has sponsored a forum on the recent flood of literature calling for school improvements, and which plans a similar colloquium next year on large-scale innovations in public education.

* Possibly reinstating some sort of teacher and principal certification programs for students at the Ed School.

* Possibly creating a program for Harvard undergraduates to earn teacher certification while pursuing their undergraduate degrees. "We're discussing this plan with (Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education) Sidney Verba ('53) and other members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences," says Ursula E. Wagener, Ed School assistant dean for academic and student services. "It's only in the idea stage now, but we're committed to the concept behind it--to get bright people into teaching."

A Background of Change

Five years ago, the Barth report found that in the '50s, the Ed School succeeded in the dual mission of "training teachers, guidance counselors, principals and superintendents and, at the same time, in promoting distinguished research."

But while theoretical research in education was blossoming in the '60s, the report criticized the Ed School for "shifting dramatically" away from being directly concerned with schooling.

Barth says he attributed the decline during the '70s in concern with schooling to "pessimism about how much schools could accomplish. Studies were coming out that emphasized other factors as being crucial to a child's intellectual growth--particularly his background--race, class, homelife, and parents."

In 1979, the Ed School faculty voted to accept the Barth report's recommendation that the school get back to close involvement with "educational practice and practitioners."

Other factors also contributed to the faculty turnaround. When Graham became the school's new dean in 1982, she said, "We must increase our efforts to understand and to improve those institutions whose primary activity ought to be education--namely, the schools."

President Bok echoed those sentiments in his 1983 Commencement address, when he called on the Ed School to increase its role in the "growing national concern for higher standards of education." Bok spoke on the heels of a widely publicized report by the National Commission on Excellence in Education--appointed by President Reagan--which roundly assailed public education in the United States and called for a smorgasbord of reforms.

However, Graham says the increased national concern over education fostered--but did not cause--the Ed School's new sense of mission. "Our renewed commitment to schooling preceded the appointment of the commission and the papers and reports. It began even before the Department of Education was created" in 1979.

But for Ed School students solely interested in teaching, the school, which produces far more administrators than teachers, may still not be the ideal place to study.

"I think this new emphasis has been more toward administration than classroom teaching," says Rebecca Beardshaw, a masters student who wants to be an elementary school teacher.

Lawrence F. Dieringer, a masters student who plans a career in teaching, says there is still "little emphasis on teaching, learning, and curriculum." He hopes the school will "make a greater effort in the direction of pedagoguery."

"I think it is very difficult to change any organization overnight, even it school of Ed.," says Laura A. Cooper, a third-year doctoral student who plans to enter the public schools as an administrator. "But it's important to recognize that the programs and activities that have been put into effect are very important first steps toward bringing the Ed School closer to the real world."

"We must increase our efforts to understand and to improve those Institutions whose primary activity ought to be education--namely, the schools...There's no question about the fact that we want to pay more attention to teaching."

--Ed School Dean Patricia A. Graham