History of Teacher Education at Harvard University

Teacher education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education has a long and illustrious history meeting the needs of our nation's children. Over the last decade, increasing disparities in student achievement - particularly for those of different racial, social, ethnic and economic status- threaten the future of our society as never before. And urban schools in particular now struggle with high standards and high stakes testing while being constrained by teacher shortages and the retirements of experienced teachers.

We acknowledge this crisis in urban education and have mobilized to meet this need. We seek to insure that every child in our society today will receive a high quality education regardless of the child's skin color, the country in which the child's parents were born, the language the child speaks at home, or the religion observed in the child's home. Recent changes in the program to address this challenge include:

• An exclusive focus of professional practice sites to urban settings (including Cambridge and Boston). We now engage with practitioners in Boston and Cambridge at South Boston High, East Boston High, Boston English High School, Media and Arts Technology Charter High School, Snowden International High School, McCormack Middle School, Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School and Somerville Charter Secondary School (which also serves Cambridge youth);
• New cutting edge courses for teacher candidates in literacy, special education, second language learners, issues of teaching across cultures, adolescent development and teacher research;
• A program designed to train teachers to be change agents and teacher leaders within their schools;
• Collaboration with the Cambridge Harvard Summer Academy to work with 300 under performing 9th and 10th and 11th grade students;
• Development of close working relationships with experienced urban teachers to make in-depth knowledge and practices related to the education of urban youth available to our students;
• Special action cohorts in Professional Partnership Schools where aspiring teachers, aspiring teacher leaders, aspiring principals and aspiring superintendents engage in school-wide reform efforts;
• Implementation of the Transition to Teaching Math and Science Program to support the education of midcareer professionals in math and science to teach in the Boston Public Schools;
• Innovative program structures including an intense advisory support system, inter-site exchanges, evening seminars and training for mentor teachers to support teacher candidates as they learn to teach in urban settings.