Rita,
If tasked with making our case to the BOT, I'm not sure I would use "independence." "Autonomy" rings truer. We can read the decline in our application/matriculants in two divergent ways. a.) We are too expensive, too rigorous, too much more of everything than what the prevailing expectations for teacher education have become, or b.) there are fewer people choosing to become teachers. I believe in absolute terms b.), but in relative terms (for the Northwest) b.) is a nearer truth. That leaves us, and the Board, a kind of choice: what would we like out of our program? Arthur Levine smacked down on the most recent generation of teacher ed programs. With the exception of the rare few, most colleges have focused not so much on the quality but of the quantity of $ these ed programs bring in. Curricula are similar across the country, so much so that a consistent array of theories and ideologies, types of field experiences and outcome expectations appear everywhere (abetted no doubt by the NCATE-ization of standards). Traditionally, ed programs have been criticized for their theory-less foundation, for the lack of mental wattage needed to become a teacher and for the routinization of programs that could be handled in an easier, simplified manner in alternative ways (TFA, district-run programs like the NYC and Boston internships, for-profit private programs). In a corrosive way, the expectations for teaching had become so low, that ed schools hollowed out their own expectations of quality. Thus we get many teaching candidates who want a narrow, limited "how do I teach math/3rd grade/reading ...?" If a program does not provide that, in a straightforward, take-away manner, the program is seen to fail even on these neap-tide expectations. Society does not have tremendous respect for what it takes to be a teacher. What respect it does have is for the technology of teaching. "Knowledge workers"? Long finish. We are left with a rather unfair false choice: quality or $? Assuming that pursuing both at the same time ensures that neither is reached, I would advocate for the former and ask Board support for our efforts to make the quality of teachers - their minds, their ideas, their creativity, the leadership - our vision. Of course, this would mean a more than concerted effort on behalf of the faculty to pursue this, both in scholarship and in practice (what we research and disseminate and how our program enjoins its implications). I believe it is more than imperative that we not shift this argument to the M.Ed, but focus on the holistic and socially contexted need for a quality teacher prep program. Does that help?
