Professor suspends course as a protest
A University of Houston education professor stopped teaching his course last month in protest of his student teachers’ placements in Houston district schools, where he said the “scripted curriculum” used in the district’s classes made it impossible for them to complete their assignments.
Alberto Rodriguez, a distinguished professor of science education at the University of Houston College of Education, informed students in his Science in the Elementary School II course of the decision in a Feb. 14 email.
“I regret to inform you that I am suspending my teaching of this course in protest of the impossible school placements to which some of you have been assigned,” Rodriguez wrote. “I feel it is unethical and unprofessional for me to continue teaching this course when you have been placed in school settings that make it very challenging for you to complete field-based assignments as expected in the effective preparation of teachers.”
University of Houston spokeswoman Shawn Lindsey said the college immediately assigned another faculty member to Rodriguez’s class, ensuring the course continued uninterrupted.
Lindsey declined to say whether Rodriguez, who is tenured at the university, would face any disciplinary action, saying the school doesn’t comment on personnel matters.
Students in the Science in the Elementary School II course, all of whom are seniors, receive student teaching assignments at schools in the Houston, Cypress-Fairbanks and Spring Branch school districts, which they rank in order of preference.
Rodriguez said the spread of highly structured lessons that can include word-for-word scripts for teachers is a “national issue” that is not isolated to the Houston district. But this semester, roughly a dozen students placed at Houston schools were complaining to him, sometimes in tears, that the rigid expectations imposed under state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles made it difficult for them to complete their assignments for his course.
Among other directives, Miles expects teachers to use timers during their lessons, engage in “multiple response strategies” roughly every four minutes and, at schools in his New Education System, administer daily quizzes, while school administrators and district officials go from room to room to monitor their work.
One key assignment in Rodriguez’s course involved developing a lesson plan for students to teach in March or April, which would go through a series of revisions in Rodriguez’s course before being delivered to children. Rodriguez’s students in the Houston district, however, told him they were unable to plan that far ahead because the lead classroom teachers did not know what they would be teaching at that point — the “script” had not yet been posted online.
Rodriguez said such constraints violated accreditation standards developed by the Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation, or AAQEP, and the Texas State Board of Educator Certification, both of which require education students to be able to effectively plan lessons, among other things.
“They are being placed in schools that are following a scripted curriculum that totally contradicts everything that we’re talking about in class,” Rodriguez said. “There’s no way you can make science inclusive and relevant to all students – especially students of color or bilingual students – when you have a teacher that is not allowed to carry out their craft.”
Representatives for the AAQEP and the Texas Education Agency, which oversees the educator certification board, did not return a request for comment. The University of Houston noted that its education program is fully accredited by both bodies.
Houston district spokesman Jose Irizarry, in a statement, said district leaders are “pleased that UH has identified an experienced professor to take over the course so that student teachers can continue their work in our schools, where they are seeing how high-quality instruction and curriculum lead to academic growth and gains in student performance.”
Rodriguez said he approached College of Education Dean Catherine Horn, university Chancellor Renu Khator and Provost Diane Chase with his concerns, and that Horn was the only person to respond, arguing that the university could not control the actions of its partners and asking him to continue teaching the course and making arrangements for his students like everybody else.
Rodriguez said he’d hoped the university might try to work with the Houston district to reach a compromise.
“That doesn’t sound like much of a partnership to me. Partners don’t watch teachers being pushed off a cliff and then just kind of look the other way,” Rodriguez said.
“You try to engage in conversations with school district officials to provide space for our students to practice what they’re learning in the classroom.”
Horn deferred comment to the University of Houston press office.