Massachusetts’ Students Will Benefit From Review of Teacher Prep Programs

Imagine what would happen if The Boston Globe reported tomorrow that doctors who went to medical school were no better than those who didn’t? Or that there were some medical schools that regularly graduated more effective doctors than others, but no one knew which ones?

For the teaching profession, this is the reality. Given how important teachers can be to student learning, it is high time that these information and quality gaps are addressed.

The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has partnered with U.S. News & World Report to do just that. Later this year, we’ll be issuing a report on over 1,000 teacher preparation programs all around the country, including those in Massachusetts. We’re looking at the nuts-and-bolts of teacher training programs: Are they selective? Do they make sure that teacher candidates know their subjects (e.g. do they make sure elementary school teachers know how to teach kids how to read?)? Do they teach candidates practical techniques to help kids learn?

Our ultimate goals: help aspiring teachers choose strong programs and guide districts to where they can find effective graduates; give programs recommendations for how to improve; and encourage the appropriate authorities to take action against substandard programs. We want to strengthen the field of teacher preparation such that it will be worthy of the same respect the public rightly accords med schools.

No assessment of teacher preparation of this scale and scope has been undertaken before. While a majority of teacher preparation programs across the country have been working with us, some have put up resistance, including several in Massachusetts.

Four University of Massachusetts campuses are withholding course syllabi, claiming they are the intellectual property of their professors and thus exempt from open records requests. Several other campuses are asking for thousands of dollars to collect those documents, something we estimate should take several hours to do (more details are on our website: http://www.nctq.org/transparency.do?stateId=22). Shouldn’t publicly funded programs publicly approved to prepare public school teachers be transparent to the public?

Teacher preparation is too important to be veiled in secrecy. That’s why we have partners like MBAE and Superintendent Alan Ingram of Springfield who support our effort. If you would like to learn more about this project or, better yet, have thoughts on how we might break the logjam in Massachusetts, reach out to me at amckee@nctq.org. I look forward to hearing from you.

Arthur McKee is Managing Director, Teacher Preparation Studies, National Council on Teacher Quality