In August, 1996 the CSU Executive Council endorsed the Mission Statement of the CSU Presidents Group on Teacher Preparation and K-18 Education. The central tenets of the statement declare:

It is our conviction that the strengthening of K-12 education is of critical importance and must be a key strategic priority of the California State University. A strong public school system is not only of vital importance to our statešs economy but will ensure that the California State University can focus its resources on appropriate college level instruction, scholarly and creative activity, and service. We believe that the central mission of CSUšs relationship to K-12 schools ought to be to improve the quality of preparation programs for school site personnel and to insure that the scholarly, pedagogical, and technological expertise of the CSU is available to the schools on an ongoing basis.

Based on the mission statement and the accompanying guiding principles, Chancellor Munitz, in consultation with President Bob Maxson and Interim Senior Vice Chancellor Charles Lindahl appointed three systemwide subcommittees: Curriculum, Assessment and Standards, Rewards and Resources, and Market Share and CSU Collaboration to address specific charges derived from the Presidents statement and to make recommendations for implementation of the guiding principles.

The subcommittees were comprised of a diverse group of individuals from across the state representing Academic Vice Presidents, Deans of Education and Arts and Sciences, faculty in various disciplines, and various other educators and private sector representatives. All of the subcommittees began work in late Fall, 1996 and have now completed their final reports, which are appended to the Executive Summary. Although each subcommittee had distinct charges and enumerated several recommendations, the final reports reveal a number of common issues on which recommendations converged. These common themes are summarized below and are followed by the key recommendations of each subcommittee.

Common Themes

The clarion call echoed by each subcommittee was the need for strong campus leadership, particularly by the campus President and Academic Vice President, to articulate and sustain a strong commitment to teacher preparation by all members of the campus community. This commitment should be evidenced by a number of features:

Structures which promote, support and sustain the all-university responsibility for teacher education.

Undergraduate academic major and teacher certification programs staffed by core faculty committed to excellent teaching and learning.

Sufficient resources to achieve restructured teacher preparation programs to meet the current demand for new teachers, as well as the estimated demand in the foreseeable future.

Integrated undergraduate academic programs which are interdisciplinary, linking subject matter content with professional preparation, including multiple clinical experiences.

Flexible teacher preparation programs, jointly planned and implemented with public school partners, which are tailored to students needs and circumstances and include multiple entry points and multiple pathways into the teaching profession.

Agreement on common exit standards based on the knowledge, skills, and abilities of a well qualified teacher and development of ongoing assessment to ensure that each candidate possesses the desired characteristics upon completion of a CSU program.

Regional approaches to teacher preparation that include common entry and exit standards and an articulated curriculum that provides for easy transfer among campuses in both integrated undergraduate programs and teacher preparation programs.

These themes are more fully articulated in various key recommendations made by the subcommittees. These recommendations are outlined below.

Key Recommendations - Curriculum/Assessment/Standards Subcommittee

The subcommittee endorsed the California Standards for the Teaching Profession and adapted these standards to create the Characteristics of a Well Prepared Teacher to describe the knowledge, skills, and abilities a CSU teacher preparation program should impart to all graduates. These sets of standards (summaries attached) should be distributed to all campuses and used as a basis for the development, in conjunction with K-12 schools, of common systemwide entry standards, transfer criteria and common exit standards.

Campuses should develop ongoing assessment systems derived from the California Standards for the Teaching Profession and exit standards proposed in the Characteristics of a Well Prepared Teacher to ensure that each teacher candidate has successfully completed a teacher preparation program. Such assessment systems should include formative measurements such as professional portfolio which would be developed as the student progresses through his/her coursework, as well as a summative assessment to ensure that each candidate possesses the desired characteristics upon completion of a CSU preparation program.

Campus presidents should encourage and support the development of new integrated subject matter/teacher preparation programs. Such programs should embody interdisciplinary course work which integrates subject matter instruction and pedagogy, includes early and frequent opportunities for a common set of clinical experiences in schools and strong articulation with Schools of Education. These programs should also include articulation agreements with community colleges to ensure that prospective teachers receive integrated, interdisciplinary experiences in the first two years of their higher education experience.

Each campus should review existing Liberal Studies programs and other undergraduate major programs which lead to a teaching credential to ensure that the programs have (1) sufficient administration/coordinator time, advising and course offerings, (2) quality faculty who model exemplary instructional techniques for future teachers and (3) adequate opportunities for the development of student support mechanisms to establish a community of undergraduate majors who intend to become teachers.

The role of community colleges in providing early coursework and field experiences to potential teachers should be recognized. Campuses should work with community college campuses for cross enrollment opportunities and assign CSU faculty to work with community college faculty to develop articulated liberal studies or other subject matter programs and teacher preparation programs.

Key Recommendations - Rewards and Resources

Presidents should work through campus academic governance to assure that criteria for retention of probationary faculty and for the award of tenure, promotion, and Performance Salary Step Increases recognize support for teacher preparation.

Given the impact of this initiative, campus presidents and provosts will assure that criteria related to this initiative are given appropriate weight in MPP evaluations. These criteria should encompass management of human, fiscal, and physical resources as well as outcomes.

Those MPP criteria related to the teacher preparation roles of not only deans of education but also vice presidents for academic affairs and appropriate academic deans, associate deans, and assistant deans, will be given appropriate priority in the evaluation of those administrators.

CSU campuses should reexamine the possibilities for collective rewards by developing partnership incentive awards for collaborative teams of faculty from departments or university-school partnership groups to address key K-16 issues.

Campus Presidents should utilize the new workload provisions of the MOU to recognize the work of supervision in faculty assignments.

Key Recommendations - Market Share and CSU Collaboration

The CSU acknowledges its responsibility to produce an increasing number of well qualified teachers to staff California schools and is fully committed to fulfilling this obligation.

The CSU should collect and distribute recent information on state and regional needs to assist each CSU campus to determine its role in meeting credential needs.

If the CSU teacher preparation programs are to succeed in increasing credential productivity, they need to be more agile, more flexible, more entrepreneurial, more responsive, and more user-friendly.

Teacher preparation should be a collaborative partnership that includes undergraduate programs that contribute subject matter, graduate offerings that are in alignment with CTC standards, and local schools that provide field experiences and student-centered opportunities for integrating practice and theory. These collaboratives should annually assess the quality of the credential candidates, establish benchmarks, and conduct appropriate additional studies to determine program effectiveness.

These key recommendations are further described in the individual subcommittee reports which also contain additional recommendations. The recommendations are a thoughtful culmination of a yearšs work by the subcommittees.

If these recommendations are implemented, they will result in restructured teacher preparation programs in the California State University. A system approach and a partnership with K-12 education will provide new opportunities for students, district teachers, and campus faculty. University responsibility for teacher preparation will recognize those associated with the program with appropriate rewards and resources and will reshape hiring and promotion practices. Accountability will be expected and graduates will be recognized for possessing the characteristics of well prepared teachers. Recommendations and plans may only be a beginning but the development of an infrastructure for the coming century is critical if the California State University is to fulfill its core mission in teacher preparation.