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Missing, Messy Teacher-Prep Data Stumps Even Federal Watchdog
Ed Week Teacher Beat | 7/24/15

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21st Century Teacher Education
Education Next |Summer 2013

A new report by the Government Accountability Office finds that many states are not complying with a requirement under the Higher Education Act that they evaluate teacher education programs and identify “at risk” and “low performing” programs. The states told the GAO that “they believed their other oversight procedures [were] sufficient to ensure quality” without having an official process in place.

The report also notes that the U.S. Department of Education itself didn’t have a process in place to monitor the states to make sure they were meeting their responsibilities under the law.

In an article for Education Next, Kate Walsh of the National Center for Teacher Quality wrote about frustrations of insiders and outsiders alike with the quality of most teacher education programs.

She noted, “Currently, consumers of teacher education, both aspiring teachers and school districts, do not know which institutions are doing a great job and which are not.”

Her article goes on to suggest actions policymakers could take to help improve our system of teacher preparation.  The NCTQ has conducted its own evaluation of the nation’s ed schools and has assigned grades to individual programs.

-Education Next