Teacher training programs ranked

[Mergath]

Have you guys seen this?

 

http://www.washingto...94cc_story.html

 

There was a huge study done that ranked the university programs that train teachers, and the results were abysmal. Something like one hundred and eleven programs actually got zero stars. I know a lot of you use BJU materials, but if your kids were looking to go there for college and become a teacher, you might want to reconsider- I think they got zero or one star, depending on which teaching program. Lots of big name schools got zeros, too.

 

So next time someone says homeschooling should require a teaching degree, you can show them this study.

 

ETA: Oh, and here's the link to the place where you can download the study in its entirety:

 

http://www.nctq.org/dmsStage/Teacher_Prep_Review_2013_Report

[Dana]

The school where I got my graduate degree and teaching credential got 3 stars.

It still didn't prepare me to teach and the education classes were a joke. I honestly believe that my 10 yo son could pass any of the graduate education classes right now.

 

I want education departments ONLY for the graduate level. Have students have a major in an undergraduate field and then go on to study education in grad school.

 

And very very little of my teaching credential has been of help with homeschool.

[readinmom]

I find this laughable. The school I graduated from got low marks; the local state factory received superior marks. My program was incredibly rigorous, had constant evaluation of data, and at its essential core, social justice. The local factory required a set of classes, a student internship, and an evaluation. These are some of the most ill-prepared people I have ever worked with.

 

[Mergath]

I find this laughable. The school I graduated from got low marks; the local state factory received superior marks. My program was incredibly rigorous, had constant evaluation of data, and at its essential core, social justice. The local factory required a set of classes, a student internship, and an evaluation. These are some of the most ill-prepared people I have ever worked with.

 

 

Has it been a few years since you graduated? It's possible the schools may have changed their programs.

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

Thank you for sharing this.

[FairProspects]

They didn't even evaluate my teacher prep program in that study, only the undergrad programs. And evaluating teaching programs nationally doesn't really make a lot of sense anyway. If I want to teach in WA, I have to follow the state certification laws in WA - they aren't nationalized. It does me no good to go to a teacher prep program at Ohio State (even if it does receive top billing) because I will run into issues with my certificate when I go to apply for jobs in WA. Some state certificates are reciprocal and some aren't. Even if they are reciprocal it is paperwork chaos. The whole process is enough to drive you nutters.

[LucyStoner]

I listened to a story about this on the radio. It makes sense that the secondary prep programs fared a bit better because many of them do require an BA in the subject matter, not just generic "education". The secondary program for WGU- an online school- got one of the rare 3s.

I must confess, I'm just as skeptical of standardized testing and measurement of teacher education programs as I am of standardized tests themselves. What, exactly, are they measuring? Who gets to decide how many points a four-star school is? Just because these measurements are precise doesn't necessarily mean they are worthwhile. And the whole darn thing is just couched in education-ese. What would SWB say about the following sentence?

 

At the undergraduate level, the program utilizes for admission a requirement of a GPA of 3.0 or higher

either for college preparatory coursework in high school (in cases of admission for preparation in the

first several years of college) or for coursework in the first two years of college.

And, this an interesting quote:

 

The list of California programs on the “Consumer Alert†roll is very long, and there’s a reason. In 1970, in an effort to beef

up the academic qualifications of teachers, California all but prohibited the traditional undergraduate education degree.12

Since then, teacher candidates have been required to earn an academic major, and professional coursework cannot take

more than a year to complete. The effect of this law on secondary teacher preparation has been limited, but the law’s

impact on elementary teacher preparation has been nothing short of disastrous, as the number of teacher preparation

programs with a ! rating attests. Of the 71 elementary programs in California evaluated in the Teacher Prep Review,

64 percent earn the lowest rating, putting the state in the top three in terms of the highest proportion of low ratings.

Why did this happen? Many California institutions replaced their elementary education majors with one-year postbaccalaureate (“post-bacâ€) preparation programs. Although the state’s licensure tests are supposed to ensure that candidates

have the broad liberal arts education they need for elementary teaching, current tests are largely inadequate.

[readinmom]

Didn't mean for my first post to sound so harsh. The whole evaluation system seems flawed. I would hope that when someone decides to enter the teaching profession, that passion that drove he/she is still there 15 years later. Most people who want to become teachers cannot afford the tuition at some of these 4 star schools. I don't know if an institution can make a good teacher...it has to come from within.

[VeritasMama]

The school where I got my graduate degree and teaching credential got 3 stars.

It still didn't prepare me to teach and the education classes were a joke. I honestly believe that my 10 yo son could pass any of the graduate education classes right now.

 

I want education departments ONLY for the graduate level. Have students have a major in an undergraduate field and then go on to study education in grad school.

 

And very very little of my teaching credential has been of help with homeschool.

 

This has been my experience as well. I have a BS in Elementary Ed, but I was a history/English/honors major before I switched. My education classes were awful, but my school's program is highly regarded.

 

TWTM and other classical education guides have given me more useful information than all of my college courses combined. Luckily, the private school I taught in switched to an intensive phonics/ classical writing model while I was still teaching, so I did receive some useful teacher training in that area before deciding to homeschool.

[mom2att]

Quote from the summary of the study:

The “reading wars†are far from over. Three out of four elementary teacher

preparation programs still are not teaching the methods of reading instruction

that could substantially lower the number of children who never become

proficient readers, from 30 percent to under 10 percent. Instead, the teacher

candidate is all too often told to develop his or her “own unique approachâ€

to teaching reading.

I graduated from a well-regarded state school with a degree in El Ed 20+ years ago. I remember hoping and praying I wouldn't get a job teaching 1st grade, since I had no idea how to go about teaching anybody to read, in spite of multiple classes on the subject. Of course now they teach them to read in Kindergarten, but apparently the ed programs are not doing any better about teaching the teacher how do go about doing this.

It was all about whole language when I was in college. Phonics was not spoken of.

[Courtney_Ostaff]

Ugh. Michelle Ree is on the board of the organization that released this study. You know, the person in charge of Atlanta's school system when all that cheating took place? The person who relies on made-up data to advance student testing? (See also: Diane Ravitch's The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education ) The same Michelle Ree who is telling schools to implement Common Core testing for fear the Chinese will take their jobs?

 

I wouldn't touch this study with a 10-foot pole.

 

I looked up my local university's undergraduate teacher ed program, which requires both a major in the academic subject and a major in the educational area (yep, that's a double major), plus a master's degree with an educational research thesis, plus significant classroom time from the second educational course onward for their students to obtain a license. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's a lot better than some programs. It's certainly more rigorous than the program I went through to get my license. That double-major program only got one star. Gee, I wonder--did their teacher education students not test well?

[Farrar]

Ugh. Michelle Ree is on the board of the organization that released this study. You know, the person in charge of Atlanta's school system when all that cheating took place? The person who relies on made-up data to advance student testing?

 

I think you're mixing up different people. Michelle Rhee was the head of the DC Public Schools, not Atlanta. There has been a much, much lower level cheating scandal here in DC as well, but IIRC, it mostly happened under Kaya Henderson, the current head, not Rhee, who left a few years ago now to go be a big superstar in education.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge Rhee defender. She did some very good things for the schools here - it is genuinely hard to argue that things are worse in the DC schools than before her very influential time. But she also did some things that I deeply disagree with and her position in the education reform movement as someone with all the answers makes me very dismayed. She's no superman.

[Farrar]

Neither of the programs that I attended in my teacher training were ranked. One because it was an alternative path, I'm sure. The other... I'm not sure. Maybe it was discontinued.

 

I also wasn't sure what was really being ranked here and what the criteria exactly were. I have zero doubt that the vast majority of teacher training schools are rotten, pointless wastes of time, even the "good" ones at the most famous universities. On the other hand, I couldn't tell from the educationese what, exactly made a school a two star versus a three or a three versus a four.

[Courtney_Ostaff]

 

I think you're mixing up different people. Michelle Rhee was the head of the DC Public Schools, not Atlanta. There has been a much, much lower level cheating scandal here in DC as well, but IIRC, it mostly happened under Kaya Henderson, the current head, not Rhee, who left a few years ago now to go be a big superstar in education.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge Rhee defender. She did some very good things for the schools here - it is genuinely hard to argue that things are worse in the DC schools than before her very influential time. But she also did some things that I deeply disagree with and her position in the education reform movement as someone with all the answers makes me very dismayed. She's no superman.

 

 

Oh, you're right, it is DC, not Atlanta. Still, there is evidence that the cheating went on under her in DC.

[Farrar]

Oh, you're right, it is DC, not Atlanta. Still, there is evidence that the cheating went on under her in DC.

 

 

Yes, but not on the level of Atlanta. And not as top down. Still inexcusable though. But her biggest legacies are firing lots of teachers who needed to be booted and instituting merit pay. Also, giving us a system that is more charter schools than not. School choice is the norm here now.

[Courtney_Ostaff]

See, I'm not down with that. Not that I'm all "Yay! Public Schools!" either, but they weren't fired because they "needed" to be -- they were fired because their students didn't test well, which is an entirely different ball of wax. Neither am I happy about charter schools -- give me a neighborhood school, yes. Charter, no.

[duckens]

I don't know why anyone is surprised by this.

 

Our country abandoned the university system and its students three decades ago.

 

IF there is money on campus, within the last decade, it has gone to STEM classes. Computer and biotech are expensive! Ed majors get by with counting bears and whiteboards (although some receive training in classroom technology).

 

In the meantime, the privileged college students (the 23% of the general population who graduate from college, so most likely had a middle or upper class upbringing) probably do not have a lot in common with the 16 million children (22% of all children) growing up in poverty. These are children who may go to bed hungry, live in a household with irregular utilities, or experience higher levels of violence in their lives. How do we bridge this gap?

[Stellalarella]

I got in BS in elementary education with mIddle school focus in the areas of both English and science. I also took special ed courses.

 

My training was generally unhelpful, except for a rigorous PE ed class taught by a coach and the music ed class taught by a local elementary school music teacher.

 

What I know about teaching methods, how to teach reading, how to teach handwriting, how to teach writing, how to teach math, I learned from scripted curriculums like HWoT, WWE, FLL, AAS, and to some extent, Phonics Pathways. I have learned so much from you all, here on the WTM forum. I thank God for the recommendations you've given me to read books that challenge my thinking.

 

I feel like you've all helped me learn to be a teacher.

 

I think schools should ask prospective students to teach using scripted curriculums....not just talk about possible methods to teach.

[Mergath]

I must confess, I'm just as skeptical of standardized testing and measurement of teacher education programs as I am of standardized tests themselves. What, exactly, are they measuring? Who gets to decide how many points a four-star school is? Just because these measurements are precise doesn't necessarily mean they are worthwhile. And the whole darn thing is just couched in education-ese. What would SWB say about the following sentence?

 

Yeah, I'm not exactly giving the whole thing my personal endorsement. :p Just thought it was interesting.

[ErinE]

Quote from the summary of the study:

The “reading wars†are far from over. Three out of four elementary teacher

preparation programs still are not teaching the methods of reading instruction

that could substantially lower the number of children who never become

proficient readers, from 30 percent to under 10 percent. Instead, the teacher

candidate is all too often told to develop his or her “own unique approachâ€

to teaching reading.

I graduated from a well-regarded state school with a degree in El Ed 20+ years ago. I remember hoping and praying I wouldn't get a job teaching 1st grade, since I had no idea how to go about teaching anybody to read, in spite of multiple classes on the subject. Of course now they teach them to read in Kindergarten, but apparently the ed programs are not doing any better about teaching the teacher how do go about doing this.

It was all about whole language when I was in college. Phonics was not spoken of.

 

I had an elementary education teacher tell me she couldn't teach her own children to read. It requires special certification and training from the state. I repeated Jessie Wise's words, "You can teach your child to read."

[ErinE]

I looked up my local university's undergraduate teacher ed program, which requires both a major in the academic subject and a major in the educational area (yep, that's a double major), plus a master's degree with an educational research thesis, plus significant classroom time from the second educational course onward for their students to obtain a license. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's a lot better than some programs. It's certainly more rigorous than the program I went through to get my license. That double-major program only got one star. Gee, I wonder--did their teacher education students not test well?

 

 

My issue with the additional degrees and thesis is there's no proof that this helps a student learn to teach. A graduate thesis might be helpful in academic circles, but I struggle to see any utility for classroom purposes. It looks good on a resume without actually helping. I tend to be sensitive to this as having recruited accountants in graduate programs, I spent many hours explaining in a diplomatic way that one more year of college does not an accountant make AND an MS in accounting would not receive and does not deserve the same compensation as an MBA with three years work experience.

 

I volunteered weekly, multiple times a week, in my ds's school for two and a half years. I assisted teachers across all grade levels. The teachers in this excellent school weren't reinventing the wheel. The best teachers engaged their students' interests and focused on the individual child. There was usually one such teacher per grade level. The rest were good, but not great. Most of the student's time was spent filling out worksheets, reading little snippets of information, then moving onto the next thing. This experience, more than any other exposure, reassured me that I could homeschool my children. For the record, I have no teaching background, certification, or experience.

 

I really liked Laping Ma's discussion of the Chinese method of teaching instruction. Teachers got together regularly to review best practices, analyzing problems that came up during classroom instruction. According to Ma, most of the math teachers only had a high school education.

 

I don't think more certifications or degrees are the answer. Some of the best teachers I ever had didn't have degrees in their subject matter; they were just really knowledgeable. I think greater time spent in the classroom, assisting and observing good teachers would result in better teachers.

[Chelli]

My university received a 3 out of 4 stars, but only for their secondary education program (which my degree is in). I can honestly say, though, that compared to what us secondary ed. students were doing, I always thought the elementary ed. students had it much, MUCH easier (a class on designing bulletin boards!). Apparently, I was right.

[Mergath]

My university received a 3 out of 4 stars, but only for their secondary education program (which my degree is in). I can honestly say, though, that compared to what us secondary ed. students were doing, I always thought the elementary ed. students had it much, MUCH easier (a class on designing bulletin boards!). Apparently, I was right.

 

Oh my gosh, the college I went to had the ed students take a bulletin board design class, too. (I wasn't an ed major, but I was friends with a few of them.) Part of me always wondered if they were kidding when they mentioned that class... Guess not.

[Farrar]

See, I'm not down with that. Not that I'm all "Yay! Public Schools!" either, but they weren't fired because they "needed" to be -- they were fired because their students didn't test well, which is an entirely different ball of wax. Neither am I happy about charter schools -- give me a neighborhood school, yes. Charter, no.

 

 

Actually, teachers she fired were fired because of previous issues with the schools, not testing. In a couple of cases, they had been accused of actual crimes and had yet to be let go thanks to bureaucratic nonsense, which she cut through. That was always her strength and her greatest source of criticism (and that of the mayor with whom she was so closely associated) - she would just do stuff by fiat much of the time. Charter schools in the city *are* neighborhood schools much of the time. While I know a few families who go cross-town, most people I know are at schools that are probably much closer to them that suburban parents are to their local schools - they may even still be within walking distance. When I see things about charter schools in the states, such as Louisiana's plan to go all charter, I do find that very dismaying. But in a densely populated urban area, it's a really different ball game.

 

I don't care for Rhee much either... I just don't think her name on this means it's bad. Or good necessarily. There are things that she pushed for (like more phonics instruction) that presumably a lot of parents on this board would support. And other things (like paying students for good grades) which I think most of us wouldn't. But she was never really about testing. She was about system reform.

[ladydusk]

I have a 20 year old Education degree from Ohio State and, really think I had to unlearn a great deal of Ed Phil (read:Dewey) to adequately educate my children. There was no suggestion that other philosophies exist. And, yes, we had 1 credit required multi-media (bulletin board) class that required using a <i>mimeograph</i> machine in the 1990s.

 

FWIW

[Courtney_Ostaff]

In the meantime, the privileged college students (the 23% of the general population who graduate from college, so most likely had a middle or upper class upbringing) probably do not have a lot in common with the 16 million children (22% of all children) growing up in poverty. These are children who may go to bed hungry, live in a household with irregular utilities, or experience higher levels of violence in their lives. How do we bridge this gap?

 

 

Yes, yes, yes! Most teachers are middle class/upper middle class white females. Students come from such different backgrounds! How do you, as a young, white, female teacher, deal with two angry black teenage football players calling each other the N-word in your classroom? This stuff happens!

 

52 percent of students were White; 23 percent were Hispanic; 16 percent were Black; 5 percent were Asian; 1 percent were American Indian/Alaska Native; less than 1 percent were Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander; and 2 percent were of Two or more races

http://nces.ed.gov/p...11/findings.asp

 

76 percent of public school teachers were female, 44 percent were under age 40, and 52 percent had a master’s or higher degree. 83% white, 7% black, 7% Hispanic. http://nces.ed.gov/f...splay.asp?id=28

 

How about the class drills I had to do in case "someone" in the room got violent? Notations on your class list like, "Beware of this student. He has violent, uncontrollable bursts of rage. Drill your students in defensively abandoning the room in case student X goes off."

 

Or the implications of IDEA? 40% of my students required the tests to be read to them. 50+% of my 16-year-olds couldn't read the social studies textbook--and we were required to test on content, not literacy. How could you teach them without expecting them to read? And, without watching movies? Or using the Internet for more than 1 period per day, since the school didn't have enough bandwidth?

[Courtney_Ostaff]

My issue with the additional degrees and thesis is there's no proof that this helps a student learn to teach. .....

 

The best teachers engaged their students' interests and focused on the individual child. There was usually one such teacher per grade level....

 

I really liked Laping Ma's discussion of the Chinese method of teaching instruction. Teachers got together regularly to review best practices, analyzing problems that came up during classroom instruction. According to Ma, most of the math teachers only had a high school education.

 

I don't think more certifications or degrees are the answer. Some of the best teachers I ever had didn't have degrees in their subject matter; they were just really knowledgeable. I think greater time spent in the classroom, assisting and observing good teachers would result in better teachers.

 

 

I absolutely agree. More degrees just equals more willingness to jump through hoops, not better teaching ability. However, my alma mater doesn't issue teaching certifications to undergraduates without that master's degree because of "reformers" like Rhee and her ilk, who insist that "Highly Qualified" teachers are better.

 

The Chinese method of teaching instruction is more of a reflection of their culture than a better way to teach, IMHO. Chinese culture, (IMHO, since I'm not Chinese) is much more collectivist, and group oriented. Of course they're going to have group sessions where they work together to improve each other's teaching. Will that work in our society, which clings hard to the notion of the fiercely independent super-star? I'm thinking not. It'd just be used as an additional opportunity for backstabbing.

 

I agree that good teaching requires a lengthy apprenticeship, which is one thing I give kudos for in my alma mater's undergraduate teaching program--they start in the classroom from their second education course, and end up doing much, much more time than a traditional 16-week student teaching course. It also helps weed out those poor unfortunate souls who get a teaching degree, and then only in their student teaching do they realize that they're just not cut out for public school classroom teaching.

[Courtney_Ostaff]

I have a 20 year old Education degree from Ohio State and, really think I had to unlearn a great deal of Ed Phil (read:Dewey) to adequately educate my children. There was no suggestion that other philosophies exist. FWIW

 

Yep. And they only give you snippets of Dewey to read. I'm been going back and reading uncensored versions of his work, and it's really quite scary.

[ladydusk]

 

 

Yep. And they only give you snippets of Dewey to read. I'm been going back and reading uncensored versions of his work, and it's really quite scary.

 

Rather than reading Dewey, can I recommend Norms & Nobility by David Hicks? I've said before and will say again that reading half of it 'de-dewified' me. I had a hard time knowing what was solid and what wasn't because we weren't really taught sources.

[Courtney_Ostaff]

Rather than reading Dewey, can I recommend Norms & Nobility by David Hicks? I've said before and will say again that reading half of it 'de-dewified' me. I had a hard time knowing what was solid and what wasn't because we weren't really taught sources.

 

I've seen people recommend it several times, and I've added it to my list. :) I think it's important to read original sources when possible, and I am finding reading Dewey enlightening, because I am seeing his underlying logic---and I am disagreeing with it! So, now when I see a derivative thought, I can remember the original rationale, and go, "Oh, no, you didn't!" ;) I'm reading Horace Mann, too--and if any wants to have a discussion about how the modern US school system is derived from the German Realschule--and the original aims of the German Realschule--I'm eagerly awaiting others' opinions.

 

ETA: I'm also a big fan of Livingstone's A Defence of Classical Education and would love to talk to someone about it!