Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Its grade was an F.

Teachers’ Colleges Upset by Plan to Grade Them: Grades are the currency of education — teachers give them to students,  administrators grade teachers and states often assign grades to schools.         Now U.S. News & World Report is  planning to give A through F grades to more than 1,000 teachers’  colleges, and many of the schools are unhappy, marching to the  principal’s office to complain the system is unfair. U.S. News and its partner in the ratings, the National Council on Teacher Quality,  an independent advocacy group, originally told schools that if they did  not voluntarily supply data and documents, the teacher quality group  would seek the information under open-records laws. If that did not  work, the raters planned to give the schools an F. That got the attention of educators. Education schools have faced criticism frequently over the years. They are faulted by a recent wave of education advocates as emphasizing education theory over hands-on classroom training, and as graduating teachers with weak academic skills.

Actually, I think they ten dot be strong in academic skills, and weak on practical skills.


The federal education secretary, Arne Duncan,  has said that many, if not most, teacher-training programs are  mediocre. “It is time to start holding teacher-preparation programs more  accountable for the impact of their graduates on student learning,” Mr.  Duncan said in a speech in November.

The same should be done for libray schools.