A Push to Get A+ Teachers

Education schools today face an army of critics that includes, interestingly, many of their alumni. More than 62 percent of education-school graduates say their training left them unprepared for the classroom.

This figure, from a 2006 survey, is the bludgeon in a widely accepted critique of ed schools as outdated and lacking rigor. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, an outspoken critic, has argued that teacher preparation today offers “no guarantees of quality for anyone.”

If that’s true, fixing things won’t be easy. The model of teacher training is decades old and embraced by established powers in higher education.

A relatively new group backed by prominent education philanthropists is proposing a radical alternative. The Relay Graduate School of Education — a nonprofit chartered by New York State to grant degrees — aims to reinvent teacher training. It dispenses with theory and child-development classes in favor of training and clinical practice similar to a medical residency. During the two-year program, students work in schools, applying techniques taught after hours by veteran teachers, not tenured professors.

Philanthropy covers about half of Relay’s $17 million in revenue. Big donors include hedge-fund manager Larry Robbins, the foundation of Gap clothing-store founders Doris and Donald Fisher, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Click on the chalkboard below to learn more about the Relay Graduate School of Education: