Hi. Thanks for sharing some information about this long-term project. What advice would you have for teacher educator to obtain the necessary long-term buy-in from school administrators? What incentives do teachers have, beyond the degree and possible self-satisfaction of seeing their teaching improve?

These are very difficult problems.

The K-12 educational system (as far as my experience extends) is structured such that top district administration is accountable to: a) state and federal authorities, b) the community (mostly via school boards), c) the district employees and d) the students and their families. So, “buy-in” is … what? Why should an administrator seek to maintain a relationship to a university program? Only if it helps to meet the real accountability demands.

It may be that an administrator has a personal belief in the value of the partnership, but obviously this is not strong foundation. Another possibility is that the university program offers some utility to the district in meeting the actual accountability demands. Our program was useful to districts in terms of teacher recruitment and retention, so there was some some value here, this is much narrower than we had hoped for in creating the LaMSTI program.

During the project (2009—2015), the LSU Cain Center (the unit administering the LaMSTI program) began offering a variety services to districts: dual enrollment opportunities, courses to prepare students for dual enrollment, and focused teacher-training opportunities to equip teachers to deliver courses of both kinds. All of these services are gathered together in the “LSU College Readiness Program.” This program offers real value to districts because is helps them meet state and federal benchmarks, appeals to the community and offers attractive opportunities for teachers and students. With the College Readiness program, “buy-in” is replaced by a more robust interdependence.

Let me continue my response in a separate post…

The College Readiness Program offers high-value services to districts and at the same time creates a revenue stream to the university through dual enrollment tuition. Much of this revenue is returned to the Cain Center, where is is used to support the the teacher-development programs that make the dual-enrollment courses possible.
This brings us to the answer to your second question: what is the incentive to teachers? Through the College Readiness Program, they obtain opportunities for more attractive teaching assignments, opportunities to work as mentors and professional developers—-real career enhancements.

To wrap up this response, let me say that when the LaMSTI project was conceived, the College Readiness Program did not yet exist. When I wrote the LaMSTI proposal, I had very naive ideas about partnership—-basically that “buy-in” could be created on the basis of shared ideals. My experience shows that this is not enough. We need a foundation in an exchange of things with concrete, evident value. This is what the College Readiness Program provides.

It is impressive that you have districts willing to commit and support their teachers in their learning— as you say, the result of hard work on partnership development that builds from a shared understanding of needs and solutions. Has administrator turnover been a problem? Do teachers get rewarded for achieving advanced degrees? And do the districts or schools have to make some accommodations for the teachers participating in LaMSTI, or do they do most of the work on their own time?

Thanks for sharing your video. Do you think you’ve sufficiently achieved the fifth goal of creating a sustainable program? What challenges, if any, have you encountered with the program and how were they addressed?

Thank you for sharing! What a great hands-on program to help both students and students-in-training to becoming teachers. Have you thought about linking the program to a college initiatives for the younger students?