N.Y. Thinks Outside Teacher Education Box

President of the American Museum of Natural History, Ellen V. Futter in the Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth in the Priest Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, New York. The exhibitions in the Hall of Planet Earth feature earth and planetary science content that will be a key resource in the museum MAT program.

—Melanie Burford/Prime for Education Week

By Stephen Sawchuk

Of all the states that have taken steps to rethink systems for preparing teachers, New York appears to be experimenting with the greatest variety of approaches.

Under a series of actions by the state board of regents over the past 1½ years, it has approved the first new graduate school of education in the state in more than half a century; cracked open the door to allow nonuniversity programs to prepare teachers at the graduate-degree level; and financed a variety of “clinically rich” pilot training programs at traditional schools of education.

The state is also in the beginning phases of tying a series of teacher assessments to its tiered-certification system, a move that ultimately will require all teachers to pass performance exams and demonstrate their impact on student learning to...