The National Council on Teacher Quality, a Washington-based education think-tank, recently published its long awaited Teacher Prep Review. The report, based on a four star system, judged only four programs at four stars. On the other hand, NCTQ judged 160 programs as so poor that they put them on a special consumer watch list. NCTQ sought to review more than 2,400 programs, but it was able to issue an overall rating to only 1,200, located at 608 institutions in all.
NCTQ faced much resistance from many schools and programs, to the point where NCTQ is still involved in lawsuit with Minnesota colleges over the release of documents. The 800-member American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education attempted to prevent its member organizations from participating, calling the NCTQ review an “outrage,” a “Swiss cheese-style project,” and “fundamentally flawed.”
The contention surrounding the report centers around the fact that NCTQ conducted their two-year long study based only on syllabi, student-teaching manuals, course textbooks, and other documents. When NCTQ could not obtain these documents, they turned to legal action to get access to documents from public institutions and sometimes even asked graduates of programs for their old materials. NCTQ could not gather enough information to rate many of the programs that they had originally planned to rate.
Despite being unable to gain access to much of the information that they had originally wanted, NCTQ turned what they did find into a truly comprehensive set of conclusions, including breakdowns by states, types of programs, and individual programs. NCTQ also broke down their ratings into four broad categories (Selection, Content Preparation (including Common Core), Professional Skills, and Outcomes) and 18 specific standards. For an example, here is the link to the breakdown for the state of Maryland: http://www.nctq.org/teacherPrep/findings/stateFindings.do?state=MD#overview
Despite the disputes, many agree that the report brings needed attention to an issue that requires more consideration. One point that the report shows, whatever your partisan position on corporate model education reform, is the great diversity of expectations and content for teacher preparation programs, including within states and even within universities.
Arthur E. Levine, the author of a critical 2006 report on teacher preparation, and now the president of the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation said, “I think it’s a better statement about the state of the field than it is about any one institution. We don’t agree on how we train teachers. And I don’t know any other profession that behaves this way.”
Following is the link to the page containing links to various sections of the report: http://www.nctq.org/dmsStage/Teacher_Prep_Review_2013_Report
Here is the link to the full report (pdf): http://www.nctq.org/dmsView/Teacher_Prep_Review_2013_Report-tsv20136189937
