Concluding a packed Annual Meeting, Bank Street College of Education and AACTE, along with Andres Alonso, deputy chancellor at the N.Y.C. Dept. of Education and Carolyn Snowbarger, director of Teacher-to-Teacher in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education at the U.S. Dept. of Education, presented “Partnerships for Quality” P4Q at P.S. 156 Benjamin Banneker School in the Bronx, N.Y.

P4Q is a program designed to prepare, place, and retain excellent teachers in the N.Y.C. schools and communities where they are most needed. Bank Street’s Augusta Kappner and Jon Snyder, along with invited guests toured two P.S. 156 classrooms led by Principal James Lee, meet with P4Q teachers, read to first-grade students and participated in an open discussion with 5th grade “People’s Court” students.

The P4Q partnership addresses the need to develop and retain good teachers in schools where well-intentioned, but often unprepared teachers have created an endemic revolving door that has been detrimental to children, especially those in high-needs schools.

“By meeting the demands of both NCLB and the need to place well-prepared teachers into urban schools, K-12 partnerships are effective in the classroom because they reduce the lofty turnover rates in high-needs districts,” said Dr. Sharon Robinson, president and CEO of AACTE. “Bank Street’s Partnership for Quality with P.S. 156 should be replicated across the country with colleges of education and local school district to ensure that teachers leave the college classroom prepared for diverse learners,” she concluded.

P.S. 156 is a Title I school located in the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx. Bank Street-educated teachers or interns with at least a year of graduate course work are placed in schools like P.S. 156 and receive supervision by the teaching program. Professional development courses at Bank Street and seasoned on-site mentors ensure the success of the program. Twenty-one of the project’s 23 participants in the first two years of the program are currently teaching in partner schools. Eighteen teachers will participate in the 2007-08 school year and 24 in 2008-09.

“Bank Street College has maintained that the winning ingredients for successful education include desire, commitment, and a high-quality teacher training program that takes into account the child as an individual,” states Dr. Augusta Kappner, Bank Street College of Education. “The intensity of this program for high-needs schools allows for growth both for the student and teacher,” she adds.

“The Bank Street Partnership for Quality program is an excellent example of a higher education institution providing meaningful technical assistance to a K-12 school. This partnership benefits not only P.S. 156 students, but also Bank Street's future teachers,” said Carolyn Snowbarger, director of Teacher-to-Teacher. “This program builds on the largest school-based factor that affects student outcomes: the quality of the teacher in classroom,” she concluded.

What is the Partnership for Quality?

The Partnership for Quality (P4Q) is a program designed to prepare, place, and retain excellent teachers in the New York City (NYC) schools and communities where they are most needed. Our goal is to create school environments that foster high quality teaching and learning over the long term so that all children who attend P4Q schools learn and succeed academically and in all facets of their development.

The Partnership’s strategy is to transform participating high-needs schools into places where teachers want to teach. It builds on the biggest school-based factor that affects student outcomes: the quality of the teacher in classroom. It creates a pipeline for the development and retention of high quality teachers using an approach that combines the best aspects of traditional and alternate routes to teacher certification.

The Partnership idea originated through the collaboration of Bank Street College of Education and three schools in the South Bronx, who are part of Instructional Region 9 and 10. It has now expanded to include partners based on the NYC Department of Education’s changing organizational structure. Beginning in the 2006 school year, the Partnership also includes high-needs schools in the NYC Department of Education’s Empowerment Zone as well as high-needs Charter Schools.

Why is the Partnership for Quality Approach to Teacher Preparation, Placement, and Professional Development Important?

In recent years, filling teacher vacancies in low-performing high-needs, high-poverty schools and districts has been the focus of many school improvement efforts. In many cases, policymakers have sought to fill these vacancies with new, hastily-prepared teachers. Data reveal that it is difficult to retain new teachers in the profession and more importantly, higher rates of attrition exist among teachers who were prepared through hastily-conducted training programs and placed in high-needs schools

Teacher attrition has a disproportionate impact on poor children. Attrition rates are higher in high poverty schools than in low poverty schools. If teachers do not leave the profession, teachers in high poverty schools are more likely to move to another school or district. This teacher “migration” has just as harmful an effect on students left behind as that of dropping out of the profession altogether. Another result of attrition and migration is a high proportion of the teachers in these schools are new to teaching. New teachers, as other professionals, need three to four years to achieve full and fluent practice. Students who have less effective teachers, particularly for several years in a row, have dramatically lower levels of achievement. The P4Q seeks to develop and retain good teachers over the long term as a critical component for improving schools and student outcomes in underserved communities.

How does Partnership for Quality Change High-needs Schools into Places Where Teachers Can and Want to Teach over the Long Term?

The Partnership for Quality model includes:

• A rigorous recruitment and selection process of teacher candidates and partner schools to ensure that participants are committed and schools provide supportive leadership.

• Strong preparation for classroom teaching that includes in-depth academic and coursework in child and adolescent development, learning theory, cognition, motivation, and subject matter

• Intensive support for Charles Evans Hughes interns at the P4Q partner schools prior to and at the beginning of their first year to build their knowledge about the school communities in which they work and prepare them to meet the challenges as new professionals.
• Extensive support in the classroom throughout the preparation program and school-wide professional development opportunities that help create an improved learning environment.

As participants are hired for teaching vacancies, Bank Street and its partners create opportunities to familiarize participants with their assigned school and community as they begin their assignments. Participants receive the individual mentoring and support that are hallmarks of Bank Street’s teacher preparation programs.

Bank Street also works with its partners to provide professional development opportunities for the larger school communities. Professional development activities range from group mentoring, workshops, and study groups to classroom coaching and modeling. Once participants have graduated from Bank Street, they receive further support from the NYC Board of Education’s induction program for beginning teachers as well as support offered to all Bank Street graduates during their first two years of teaching.

What evidence exists of the Partnership’s Potential for Success?

Initial data show that 21 of the project’s 23 participants in the first two years are currently teaching in partner schools under the Internship Credential or as certified teachers, indicating a 9 percent attrition rate. The attrition rate citywide for teachers in their first two years of teaching is about 18 percent.

How is Partnership for Quality’s funded?

The Partnership for Quality currently receives generous support from The William Randolph Hearst Foundations, the Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Foundation, and the United States Department of Education’s Transition to Teaching program.

What teachers at P.S. 156 participate in the Partnership?

Adriane Frye, Bank Street Intern
Adriane Frye is the Special Education teacher in the PreK 117 at PS156. This is her first year as a head teacher at PS156. Prior to this, she spent two years as an assistant teacher at Studio Elementary School, and one as an intern at Bank Street Family Center. Ms Frye has an undergraduate degree in English, French from Macalester College. She is completing dual certification Masters in Early Childhood and Early Childhood Special Education at Bank Street College. “The P4Q program has been a huge support in helping me make a rewarding transition from assistant to head teacher, and from private to public school,” she states.

Michelle Heimlich, 1st Grade Teacher Bank Street Student Study Cohort, 2005-2006
Michelle Heimlich moved to New York to complete her undergraduate education at New York University and become dual certified in special education and general education grades K-5th. She will graduate as a literacy specialist in May, 2007 from New York University. She worked with Bank Street last year while teaching a self-contained special educational class of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. She currently teaches in a first grade general education class as this is her second year of teaching. She lives in East Harlem. ‘She knew that she wanted to teach in New York City and decided to leave her family and friends five years ago to move across the country and begin her teaching and learning journey’.

Barbara Pinos, 2nd grade Teacher Bank Street Student Study Cohort, 2004 - Present
Barbara Pinos is a second grade teacher and also a Co-Lead Teacher. She has been at this school for over nine years, starting as an educational assistant in the special education department. She has taught 1st, 3rd, 4th and 2nd grades. She has an MS in Elementary Education and is an Ennis Cosby Scholar at Fordham University, a program that is helping to improve her teaching practice. She has been a part of the Bank Street program for approximately three years. “The Schools Attuned Program has made me a more reflective and practical teacher. Instead of saying,’the students don’t get it’ or ‘what’s wrong with them’ I take a closer look at the student and myself.”

Xiomara Cruz, 1st Grade Teacher Bank Street Student Study Cohort, 2004-present
Xiomara Cruz has been teaching for six years -- pre-K, K, and 1st grade. She has been a part of this partnership since 2003. “I have been able to look closely at my students and learn modifications and strategies that will help them become more successful in the class. Teachers can also take these strategies from one child and apply them throughout the classroom.” Ms, Cruz is a product of New York City public schools, received a B.S. in Elementary Education/Geography at SUNY- New Paltz. She will graduate in May 2007 with a MS.Ed in Literacy Studies K-6 from CUNY- Lehman.

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