State rates teacher prep programs - St. Petersburg Times:
"Out of the blue, the FCAT has a new job: measuring the programs across the state that produce teachers.
And it is already waving a red flag at the University of South Florida.
For the first time, the state Department of Education has examined the effectiveness of rookie teachers from a wide variety of teacher preparation programs, using their students' scores on the math and reading portions of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test in 2008. It determined what percentage of graduates from each program had 50 percent or more of their students make a year's worth of progress."
"Out of the blue, the FCAT has a new job: measuring the programs across the state that produce teachers.
And it is already waving a red flag at the University of South Florida.
For the first time, the state Department of Education has examined the effectiveness of rookie teachers from a wide variety of teacher preparation programs, using their students' scores on the math and reading portions of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test in 2008. It determined what percentage of graduates from each program had 50 percent or more of their students make a year's worth of progress."