Fact-Checking Joel Klein: Is it True Most Teachers Think Traditional Training is Useless?
At the NewSchools Venture Fund Summit this morning, News Corp. executive and former NYC schools chancellor Joel Klein claimed that "most" teachers believe the traditional teacher training process--coursework and student teaching followed by a state certification exam--is useless.
"Most of the people who've gone through it don't think the credential is valuable," Klein said.
There are very few polls of the American teacher corps, but the surveys that do exist show Klein is mischaracterizing teachers' views. The majority of teachers believe there is value in entering the profession only after studying education and pedagogy both as a student and a student-teacher. What's more, teachers who do come into the profession through accelerated, alternative-route programs are the most likely to feel unprepared during their first year in the classroom.
In 2007 Public Agenda surveyed 865 first-year teachers in high-needs schools, some of whom had graduated from traditional teaching programs, others who entered the profession through alternative routes such as Teach