Recognizing the Importance of Strong Teacher Prep in Ohio
There is little question that effective teacher preparation is a critical challenge, for both the state and our nation. High-quality teacher preparation not only affects student learning outcomes, but it also has direct impact on our economy, our community, and our citizenry as a whole.
By way of background, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation has spent the last 70 years identifying and developing the nation’s best minds to meet its most critical challenges. This work began in 1945, as the Woodrow Wilson Foundation responded to the significant number of American GIs returning home from World War II with a promise of a higher education under the GI Bill. Then, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation helped recruit and prepare the generation of college professors necessary to meet post-war higher education needs. Today, the nation’s greatest need for education leaders is at the secondary level, and particularly in the urban and rural schools that serve so many of America’s low-income young people.
Few would argue that increasing STEM achievement across the country and across the state is critical in order to improve competitiveness and to lift families out of poverty. Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce found that Ohio will have to fill 258,000 STEM-related jobs by 2018. Ninety percent of these jobs will require a postsecondary education. Like most other states, Ohio cannot fill these vacancies unless it takes seriously the responsibility of improving STEM achievement. To help address this need, the Woodrow Wilson Ohio Teaching Fellowship was launched in 2010, in partnership with the Ohio Department of Education, the Ohio Department of Higher Education, (formerly the Ohio Board of Regents), Choose Ohio First and a consortium of funders including the Cleveland Foundation, the GAR Foundation, the George Gund Foundation, the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation, the Battelle Memorial Institute and The Battelle Fund at the Columbus Foundation.
Ohio is home to 51 traditional teacher education programs, housed in the state’s colleges and universities. In recent years, across all of those programs, the state has produced as few as 17 technology teachers annually, as few as 23 physics teachers annually, and as few as 25 chemistry teachers annually. Against the backdrop of a massive wave of baby boomers at or approaching retirement age, these numbers are hardly enough to fill all of the STEM hiring needs in the state’s 611 school districts. The problems of filling these teaching positions are magnified in high-need districts that face increased challenges recruiting and retaining the best teaching talent.
Through the Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship, we are attracting, preparing, and placing talented, committed individuals into teaching in high-need secondary schools. With programs currently in five states, including in Ohio, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation is working to change the way top teachers are prepared. We partner with colleges and universities to create a more effective teacher education program focused on a yearlong classroom experience, rigorous academic work, and ongoing mentoring. In each state, a blend of private and public support has been key to the creation of the program, as have gubernatorial leadership and statewide coalition-building.
Supported by more than $16 million in funding from the State of Ohio and private foundations,the funding has enabled us to create world-class, clinically based master’s programs at John Caroll University, the Ohio State University, Ohio University, University of Akron, University of Cincinnati, University of Dayton, and the University of Toledo. To encourage outstanding STEM students and professionals to consider teaching and enroll in these programs, Fellows were offered a $30,000 Fellowship plus tuition assistance during the year of their academic work. The Fellowships helped Ohio retain and bring back talented, accomplished people. From 2011 to 2014, we awarded just over 300 Fellowships to high-achieving STEM students to become science, technology, engineering and math teachers in the Ohio schools and districts that need them most. These numbers are enough to fill nearly all of the STEM vacancies in the state’s highest need school districts. Among the Fellows who have earned their teaching certification, 91.5 percent were placed, and 89 percent remain employed in high-need schools throughout the state, far surpassing national trends which show 40 percent to 60 percent of new teachers leaving the profession in their first three years.
Among the people who received these Fellowships were a NASA intern, a cancer researcher, a forensic scientist in criminal investigations, a former engineer in the automotive industry, Lockheed Martin, GE, Exxon, and Owens Corning. Several are veterans of the U.S. armed services, and 15 hold PhDs. Woodrow Wilson Fellows are graduates of outstanding local, regional, and state institutions — including all seven partner campuses.
Each Fellow is committed to teaching for at least three years in Ohio’s high-need urban and rural schools in cities and towns such as Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, and Toledo and dozens more. Every day across the state of Ohio, tens of thousands of students are participating in engaging math lessons, they’re conducting high-quality labs, they’re using inquiry, and they’re making interdisciplinary connections because they are being taught by Choose Ohio First Scholars — Woodrow Wilson Ohio Teaching Fellows.
We want to express our deepest gratitude to the State of Ohio, its leadership, our generous funders, the hardworking program directors at our seven partner universities who took seriously the charge of creating innovative teacher education programs, and most importantly, to our Fellows who are true difference makers. On behalf of the leadership and staff at the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, thank you all so very much for all you’ve done.
(The above remarks were delivered by Brian Hayes, Woodrow Wilson Ohio Teaching Fellowship Program Director, at the Choose Ohio First Scholars Event in Columbus, OH, on April 19, 2016.)
