Center for Educational Renewal

A research organization founded in 1985 to study and improve the education of professional teachers in the United States. Founded by JOHN I. GOODLAD and two associates, the center has conducted comprehensive studies of teacher training to develop new methods of professional training and, in turn, to help improve quality of education in American public schools. The primary result of the center’s research has been the development of a new approach to teaching education through school/university partnerships, whereby future teachers divide their time between theoretical studies at college and practical training in working elementary and secondary schools. Akin to programs leading to degrees in medicine, law and other professions, training in a school/university partnership requires future teachers to spend their first two years at university studying the humanities, social sciences and other conventional college courses of direct and indirect value to the future teacher. The second part of the preeducation curriculum is school-based, using actual schools in the same way that teaching hospitals teach future doctors in actual hospital situations. Financed by continuing grants from the Exxon Foundation, the Ford Foundation and Southwestern Bell Foundation, the center established its initial pilot school/university partnerships at eight colleges and universities in California, Ohio, Massachusetts, New Jersey, South Carolina, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. By 2000, it had expanded to 40 institutions of higher education in 20 states and was serving 750 schools in more than 100 school districts.