Professional Force: NYSUT provides leadership, support
NYSUT provides leadership, support
Name the ways educators receive support for their work. At the top of the list are:
- teacher centers, formed in the late 1960s and still helping teachers today;
- the Effective Teaching Program coordinated by New York State United Teachers, which offers courses taught by practicing educators;
- a statewide in-service conference held annually since 1981;
- mentor-teacher internships;
- a national teaching certification process, and
- a state professional board.
The common thread is union involvement, which has driven professional development faster and farther. "There has always been a huge demand to assist our members in getting the training they need," said Antonia Cortese, NYSUT's first vice president, who oversees the union's Research and Educational Services Division. "Whether it was classroom management for teachers or paraprofessionals, or discipline techniques for bus drivers and secretaries, there has been a big gap between what districts provide and what members need and want."
Teacher centers
In 1968, New York State Teachers Association, one of NYSUT's predecessor unions, gave the Scarsdale Teachers Association a grant to form the Scarsdale Teachers Institute, a prototype for teacher centers in the state. Judy Schwartz still remembers a contemporary short stories course, one of eight the institute offered in 1969.
"It made me a better high school English teacher," said Schwartz, who has been director of the institute since 1980.
The institute, which today offers almost 80 courses, flourished with nourishment from the union and "an extremely forward-thinking board then that saw the institute would be vulnerable without being in the contract," Schwartz said.
In the 1970s, federal legislation funded the centers. After strong lobbying from NYSUT, New York state began providing grants in 1984. Now there is a 120-center statewide network of teacher centers offering thousands of courses.
Project TEACH
Outside of a handful of districts that had teacher centers, many districts in the 1970s defined professional development as importing a speaker who had not been in charge of a classroom for years to talk about new techniques.
Once NYSUT was formed in 1972, the union responded to an unmet demand for quality in-service training, working with teacher centers to develop programs - including Project TEACH, dealing with classroom management.
"Teachers saw the value in being trained by people who not only knew the theory, but also practiced it," said Jeff Rozran, who began teaching in 1973 and is now president of the Syosset TA. "The enthusiasm happens when it's a natural outgrowth of teacher needs."
NYSUT launched its statewide Effective Teaching Program with 23 classes of Project TEACH from January to August 1979. The program has grown to more than 10,000 participants in about 500 courses in recent years.
ETP participants may earn graduate credit or in-service credit from their districts. The program has received credit recommendations from the New York State Board of Regents Program on Noncollegiate Sponsored Instruction, intended to guide college officials in awarding credit.
In-service conference
Still, there was a demand for more. In 1981, NYSUT and the State Education Department held the first statewide in-service conference, providing models of teaching strategies. Districts sent teams who returned to share information with their colleagues.
The conference became a yearly event. Although at times hampered by budget cuts, attendance has grown - this year, more than 900 attended and 300 were turned away. Marie Hornick, a Schalmont English teacher, was one of 128 in a session intended for 50 on new Regents Exams. "We'll all bring back valuable information to our colleagues," she said.
Professionalization
Since 1964, the Teacher Education Certification and Practices board has overseen the state's certified teaching profession. This board oversees teacher centers; discipline and licensing cases; requirements for more than 600 certification areas; and advises SED on teacher preparation and the mentor-intern program.
For years, a broad appointment process meant only a few active, classroom teachers were appointed to the board, which "really did not get a view from the classroom," Cortese said. Although a 1977 commissioner's task force report recommended more teacher representation on a professional practices board, political wrangling stalled any action until 1987, when NYSUT President Tom Hobart was appointed co-chairman of a new teaching task force. Then-Education Commissioner Thomas Sobol adopted the task force's recommendation to restructure the professional board to include a majority of classroom teachers.
The Regents are now considering a recommendation to replace the TECAP board with a professional board that would not be composed of a majority of practicing teachers. NYSUT opposes that concept.
"TECAP has worked as a vehicle for reform. It could work even more effectively with proper funding and recognition," Cortese said.
Mentoring
Guided by research that peer assistance would help new teachers and perhaps reduce the number leaving the profession, NYSUT won state funding for a mentor-intern program, launched in 1986 to glowing reviews. The Syosset TA ran one of the first mentor teacher-intern-ship programs in the winter of 1987. Mentors received an unanticipated benefit.
"It re-energized a lot of people," said Rozran. "Teachers getting together for brainstorming sessions and educational workshops brought everyone - mentors and interns - to a new level."
A state budget crisis in 1990-91 forced drastic cuts, but the state restored mentor program funding in the 1997-98 budget year.
Certification
The union also has been a leader in the push for national teacher certification - a concept championed by Al Shanker, the legendary president of NYSUT's national affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers. In 1987, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards was formed as an independent, non-profit, non-governmental agency composed mostly of teachers. It determines standards for a rigorous, months-long national certification process.
Mike Gatto of Smithtown was one of the first to receive national certification in 1994. He credited a union-sponsored course on cooperative learning with putting him on the path to continual professional development. He went on to become one of the first instructors in the ETP program.
"When you teach the same thing, as I have for almost 30 years, it can be tough to keep it fresh," said the middle-school social studies teacher. "What I've experienced is the union providing all the opportunities and the options teachers need to collaborate, discuss and learn more."