It's Time for New Ideas in Teacher Training

By Doug Lynch

There's been a lot of buzz lately about ventures such as High Tech High's Graduate School of Education in San Diego and Relay Graduate School of Education in New York City.

These private schools of education, associated with charter schools and other reform efforts, are issuing master's degrees and promoting a clinical model of teacher education in which most learning occurs in the same place where teachers do their jobs—a classroom full of kids—rather than through traditional college coursework.

Some of the talk about these schools has been positive, and a lot of it—particularly from academics who teach in traditional schools of education—has been negative. But just about everyone agrees that, for good or for ill, these schools represent something new and innovative, a radical departure...