CA officials dispute national teacher quality study’s findings
A study calling more than three-quarters of the nation’s teacher colleges ‘mediocre at best’ is flawed and fails in its mission to fairly evaluate their quality, according to the chair of California’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing and the state’s superintendent of public instruction.
The report, released Tuesday by the non-profit National Council on Teacher Quality, rated 608 institutions using a four-star system and found that 78 percent earned two or fewer stars, “ratings that connote, at best, mediocrity,” wrote the authors.
The study, which includes a “consumer alert” warning for programs earning less than one star, has been both praised and panned across the nation. In California – where 34 of the 71 evaluated elementary teacher preparation programs received the warning – education officials were quick to respond.
“While the report appropriately focuses on the importance of teacher education, it does not, unfortunately, accurately reflect the work of teacher education programs in California or nationally,” Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond, chair of the CTC and considered among the nation’s leading authorities on pedagogy and instructional policy, said in a