Valerie Strauss Column Today Corrects Misconceptions about National Council on Teacher Quality
In a his NY Times column last Tuesday, What Is Good Teaching? Joe Nocera describes the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) as though it is a legitimate reviewer of colleges of education. He writes, “The lack of teacher training in education schools has also been borne out recently by a new report by the National Council on Teacher Quality, entitled ‘Training Our Future Teachers.’” I wil
Ted Mitchell, Nominee for Under-Secretary of Education, Is a Privatizer
Lee Fang, a respected investigative reporter for The Nation magazine, exposes ties of Ted Mitchell to private education contractors and a for-profit university. Mitchell is chief executive of NewSchools Venture Fund and President Barack Obama’s nominee as Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education.
According to Fang, “As head of the NewSchools Venture Fund, Mitchell oversees investments in education technology start-ups. In July, Zynga, the creators of FarmVille, provided $1 million to Mitchell’s group to boost education gaming companies. Mitchell’s NewSchool Venture Fund also reportedly partners with Pearson, the education mega-corporation that owns a number of testing and text-book companies, along with one prominent for-profit virtual charter school, Connections Academy.
Fang also connects Mitchell to a for-profit university, at a time when many hope the Department of Education will begin better regulating these institutions: “Mitchell serves as an adviser to Salmon River Capital, a venture capital firm that specializes in education