UB's Petrie Joins Nation's Top Deans In Call For Radical Overhaul of Education Schools

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Hugh Petrie, dean of the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education, today joined the Holmes Group in calling for the 250 schools that prepare most of the nation's teachers to "get up to speed or get out of the business."

The group, a consortium of 80 research university-based schools of education that is dedicated to improving teacher education and the profession of teaching, issued the call in a new report, "Tomorrow's Schools of Education," released at a press conference held here this morning.

The report claims that the nation's education schools -- those charged with developing and upgrading the skills of the nation's education work force -- are dangerously out-of-synch with the needs and realities of today's schools.

Petrie was one of the founding members of the Holmes Group in 1986 and has since served on its board of directors. He served as vice president for the group's northeast region from 1986 to 1991.

Petrie said, "The simultaneous renewal of both schools and institutions of higher education called for in the report is long overdue. A call for accounting is welcome and necessary, he said, adding that "perhaps as many as half of the institutions in the country that prepare teachers are wholly ill-equipped to do so."

"Colleges and universities can no longer stand apart in splendid isolation from their responsibilities for the often dismal performance of our elementary and high schools," Petrie said, adding that the report "issues a clear challenge for reform, not only of schools of education but of the larger institutions of which they are a part."

Judith Lanier, president of the Holmes Group, underscored the importance of that message, saying, "There is a direct link between the substandard quality of America's school system and the system that prepares our teachers and other education leaders."

The report, "Tomorrow's Schools of Education," calls for each of the nation's 250 education schools -- schools that prepare both the faculty of all the nation's college-based schools of education and a significant number of the nation's K-12 teachers -- to adopt reforms to improve the quality of teacher and administrator training or "surrender their franchise."

It charges that higher education must bear the brunt of criticism for the lack of quality and innovation in teacher education, and that schools of education exacerbate the problems of public schools by preparing educators for a by-gone era. It says that the schools that prepare teachers should work with more innovative institutions to help make teaching a truly intellectual profession.

"Tomorrow's Schools of Education" points out that universities treat their education schools like "poor stepchildren," penalizing them for direct involvement with the public schools and denying them necessary resources and support for innovations in teacher preparation.

The report notes, as well, that fewer than five percent of the nation's university education faculty have taught in urban schools and that many have not taught outside college in decades. In addition, it says, too few institutions produce quality research on teaching and too few help front-line educators apply new research in the classroom.

Petrie said that the UB Graduate School of Education has made a good start on many of the recommendations in "Tomorrow's Schools of Education."

"Our nationally-recognized Buffalo Research Institute on Education for Teaching (BRIET) incorporates many of the report's recommendations with its emphases on clinical faculty and teachers as researchers. We have a long way to go, however.

"I am delighted with the new report," Petrie conclude, "because it clearly states that the most difficult of imperatives for reformers is to reform themselves."

Hugh Petrie can be reached at the Washington Renaissance Hotel through Sunday, January 29. His number there is 202-898-9000. Thereafter he may be reached during business hours in his office at the University at Buffalo, 716-645-2491.