Programs Train Teachers Using Medical School Model

Programs Train Teachers Using Medical School Model
NPR
by Claudio Sanchez
April 22, 2010

What if we prepared teachers the same way we prepare doctors?

As school reformers lurch toward more innovative ways for training classroom teachers, this idea is getting a lot of attention. A handful of teacher "residency programs" based on the medical residency model already exist. Boston was one of the first to create one in 2003.

Tom Payzant had been Boston Public Schools superintendent when he founded the Boston Teacher Residency program. Payzant, who now teaches at Harvard University, says the city desperately needed to attract more talented teachers, especially for hard-to-fill positions like math, science and special education. But it wasn't just about the numbers, Payzant says. It was about the quality of teachers coming out of colleges of education.

"Most teacher training institutions focus more on content and less on practice and how people teach," Payzant says...