Embracing and Fostering Accountability

Increasingly, educators in Colorado are coming to depend on DU’s Morgridge College of Education for the ideas and know-how essential to reforming education at every level, from preschool and kindergarten through college and beyond.

The Morgridge College’s key programs continue to attract support and funding. In spring 2010, an $8.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s five-year Teacher Quality Partnership fund moved Colorado’s dream of providing quality education to its most vulnerable citizens closer to reality. Awarded to the Denver Public Schools and the Morgridge College’s Denver Teacher Residency (DTR) program, the grant will be used to train and place new teachers in areas of critical need. Aspiring teachers matriculate through a program that includes a 12-month, in-classroom residency with an experienced teacher, a DU master’s degree in curriculum and instruction, teacher licensure and a four-year teaching commitment. The grant provides full tuition reimbursement for the DU degree.

DTR is modeled on medical residency programs and has a highly competitive admittance program that is almost as strict. Successful applicants provide a written application and professional references, take certification exams, participate in multiple interviews and group work, and must be accepted by both the DTR selection committee and the Morgridge College graduate program. The incoming cohort is capped at 35.

“Morgridge will never be the largest provider of teachers, but we will be the best and the most strategic,” said Gregory Anderson, dean of the college. “We’ve embraced education’s accountability movement. We made some big changes in how we evaluate our effectiveness and the steps we take to improve. That’s not easy, but our priority is to be an evidence-based college of education that can validate its successes and can learn from its failures.”

The college’s ability to address additional school district requests for teachers proved two things. First, its reputation for excellence is growing, Anderson said. Second, the teacher residency model could be replicated and scaled to meet emerging needs.

“We can reduce costs and reduce replication,” Anderson said. “We have a small, one-year pilot project on the table to create a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) teacher residency program for the Aurora School District that offers a clinical experience connected to high-need schools and high-need students. We secured funding for that effort through the Morgridge Family, Boettcher and Rose foundations. We’re very excited about the opportunity to enter into a long-term agreement and partnership with one of the largest districts in Colorado.”