Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education Teaching for a Changing World: The Graduates of Bank Street College of Education The Threads They Follow: Bank Street Teachers in a Changing World By Ira Lit and Linda Darling-Hammond with Eileen Horng, Sam Intrator, Soyoung Park, Jon Snyder, and Xinhua Zheng sco e Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education This report is one of five publications from the larger study entitled Teaching for a Changing World: The Graduates of Bank Street College of Education Linda Darling-Hammond and Ira Lit, principal investigators About the authors: Ira Lit, PhD, associate professor of Education (Teaching), Stanford Graduate School of Education, and faculty director, Stanford Elementary Teacher Education Program (STEP Elementary) Linda Darling-Hammond, EdD, Charles E. Ducommun professor of Education, emeritus, at Stanford University, and faculty director, Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) Additional contributing authors: Eileen Horng, PhD, research associate, Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) Sam Intrator, PhD, professor of Education and Child Study and the Program in Urban Studies, Smith College, and head of school, Smith College Campus School Soyoung Park, doctoral student, Stanford Graduate School of Education Jon Snyder, EdD, executive director, Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) Xinhua Zheng, PhD, research analyst, Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) Suggested citation: Lit, I. & Darling-Hammond, L. (2015). The threads they follow: Bank Street teachers in a changing world. Stanford, CA: Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. 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Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education http://edpolicy.stanford.edu @scope_stanford sco e Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education Acknowledgments e are grateful for the generous support of numerous colleagues in the conduct of this research project and the preparation of this report: to Wnumerous faculty and administrators at Bank Street College of Education for invaluable support at every stage of the project; to all of the Bank Street gradu- ates, other teachers, and school administrators who took the time to provide their responses to our survey requests; and especially to the administrators, teachers, and students at Midtown West School, Community Roots Charter School, and Brooklyn New School for opening the doors of their schools and classrooms and taking time to talk with us about their practice in the service of our case studies. To colleagues at WestEd for their contributions toward the preparation and implementation of the various surveys; to colleagues at New York State United Teachers, particularly Dave Adkins and Maria Neira, for support in obtaining a comparison sample of teachers in New York State; to colleagues in the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE), particularly Douglas Coulter, for support and coordination with regards to the procurement of student- and teacher- linked data relevant for this study; to Liam Aiello, doctoral candidate at Stanford Graduate School of Education, for support with survey analysis and report edit- ing; to Jacob Moffat, department head, English, Sacred Heart Schools in Atherton, California, for support revising and editing this final report; to Madlene Hamilton, policy and research analyst at SCOPE, for technical support and coordination in the important early stages of this project. Without the generosity of time and spirit of all of the aforementioned, this work would not have been possible. The research endeavors described here were conducted independently by the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. The Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) was founded in 2008 to address issues of educational opportunity, access, and equity in the United States and internationally. SCOPE engages faculty from across Stanford University and from other universities to work on a shared agenda of research, policy analy- sis, educational practice, and dissemination of ideas to improve quality and equal- ity of education from early childhood through college. More information about SCOPE is available at https://edpolicy.stanford.edu. Table of Contents Executive Summary....................................................................................................i Project Overview.......................................................................................................1 Preface..............................................................................................1 Liliana: Putting the Bank Street Developmental-Interaction Approach to Work.....................................................................................3 Study Goals, Design, and Methods.................................................................8 About Bank Street College of Education ..................................................................11 History of Bank Street College of Education...............................................11 Program Summary of Bank Street College...................................................14 The Bank Street Developmental-Interaction Approach................................17 Summary......................................................................................21 Professional Pathways, Perceptions of Preparation, and Analysis of Effectiveness.......................................................................................................22 Where are Bank Street Graduates Now?........................................................23 How do Bank Street Graduates Evaluate the Quality of Their Preparation?.....26 Do Bank Street Graduates Demonstrate Qualities of Effective Teachers?........32 Summary................................................................................................41 Cross-Cutting Themes: Influences of Bank Street Preparation and the Bank Street Developmental-Interaction Approach......................................................................42 Approach to Students...................................................................................44 Approach to Curriculum..............................................................................76 Approach to the World...............................................................................119 Liliana: A Bank Street Graduate in Action...................................................151 Conclusion....................................................................................................170 References................................................................................................173 Appendix A: Research Design, Methodology, and School Sites.............................178 The Way It Is There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold it you can’t get lost. —William Stafford Executive Summary I found Bank Street to be an outstanding institution for educating teachers, far exceeding the common perceptions about teacher train- ing. They are very strongly focused on the child’s developmental level, and how to engage a child with meaningful, age-appropriate, firsthand experiences and curriculum. —Bank Street graduate he Bank Street College of Education is both a historical and contemporary insti- Ttution of progressive education. Historical, in that it has its roots in the Progressive Era movement. It was founded in 1916 as The Bureau of Educational Experiments by educator Lucy Sprague Mitchell, a compatriot of John Dewey and others influential in the progressive education movement of that time. Mitchell and her colleagues concluded that building a new kind of educational system was essential to building a better, more rational, more humane world. Contemporary, as the college continues to pro- mote an enlightened orientation to education The mission of Bank Street College is that seeks to ground progressive ideals in the to improve the education of children modern contexts of schooling and related poli- and their teachers by applying to cies. A century after its founding, Bank Street the education process all available College of Education continues a long tradition knowledge about learning and of providing educational opportunities with a growth, and by connecting teaching progressive orientation to children and educa- and learning meaningfully to the tors through a wide range of programs in its outside world. In so doing, we seek well-regarded School for Children and Graduate to strengthen not only individuals, School of Education. but the community as well, including family, school, and the larger society The Bank Street College Graduate School of in which adults and children, in all Education offers internationally renowned their diversity, interact and learn. We master’s level teacher certification programs see in education the opportunity to from early childhood through middle grades build a better society. with a number of specializations, programs, (Bank Street College of