Thursday, February 10, 2011

FAQs on New Teacher-Preparation Program Rankings - Morse Code: Inside the College Rankings (usnews.com)

FAQs on New Teacher-Preparation Program Rankings - Morse Code: Inside the College Rankings (usnews.com)

FAQs on New Teacher-Preparation Program Rankings

February 10, 2011 10:20 AM ET | Robert Morse | Permanent Link | Print

U.S.News & World Report and the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) recently announced a partnership to produce a rating of teacher preparation programs at more than 1,000 education schools across the U.S. Since the announcement, some key questions have been raised about the project. Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions:

Why are U.S. News and NCTQ rating teacher preparation programs? U.S. News believes that teacher education programs are very important and have not been scrutinized in the past. There is a big push nationwide to improve teacher quality and the quality of schools at the K-12 level. These new rankings will be part of the national movement to hold teacher preparation programs accountable for their graduates. We hope these new rankings will help lead to improvements in teacher quality and better schools.

When will the rankings be published? The new rankings will not be published until sometime in the second half of 2012. NCTQ is all ready working on data collection and has sent surveys