

Universities that train U.S. teachers get mediocre marks in ratings - tokenadult
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/university-programs-that-train-us-teachers-get-mediocre-marks-in-first-ever-ratings/2013/06/17/ab99d64a-d75b-11e2-a016-92547bf094cc_story.html

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penrod
Programs to "prepare the nation’s K-12 teachers" are probably terrible at
doing that because it is not their purpose.

The purpose of teacher qualifications is to lend status to the profession, and
to serve as arbitrary yardsticks for promotion.

[http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/10/pdf/teacher_e...](http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/10/pdf/teacher_effectiveness.pdf)
"traditional measures of teacher qualifications, such as completion of a
preparation program, number of degrees, or years of experience... [serve as]
the basis for making decisions about hiring, tenure, licensing, compensation,
and selection for leadership roles... current measures for evaluating teachers
are not often linked to their capacity to teach"

If ability to teach is not relevant to teachers' career prospects, there is
probably not much pressure on universities to offer training that improves it.

~~~
mathattack
This is why I thought the AFT's suggestion on a rigorous exam was ludicrous
too. Does passing the bar make lawyers better law teachers?

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cafard
From the Post article:

"The National Council on Teacher Quality analyzed admissions standards and
inspected syllabuses, textbooks and course requirements and rated 1,430
programs on a scale of zero to four stars. The organization did not visit the
schools or interview students and faculty."

How seriously would the newspapers take a restaurant guide built with a
similar approach? "We haven't been there, but the menu looks good, and their
vegetable supplier is OK." It is also hard to take seriously a study that
doesn't look at the work of the graduates.

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dmckeon
Around 45% of new teachers leave the profession within 5 years. Is a degree in
education (or a post-bac year in California) worth the time and money
invested? What other professions have similar turnover rates?

[https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/27/world/americas/27iht-
teac...](https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/27/world/americas/27iht-
teachers.1.7266988.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/03/08/high-
teacher...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/03/08/high-teacher-
turnover-rates-are-a-big-problem-for-americas-public-schools/)

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ryanhuff
I am in California, and my understanding is that teachers-in-training normally
put in a certain number of hours of time in an actual classroom before they
earn their teaching credential. Perhaps teachers in other states have a
different experience, but I think California does a reasonable job with
preparing teachers.

Still, if a teacher does their classroom training in an affluent neighborhood
but then take a teaching job in a low income school, I would not be surprised
that their be an adjustment period. But preparing the teachers for local
issues seems best handled by the school district.

~~~
weland
I'm not in the US, but a (fairly long) while ago when my mother decided she
wanted to be a teacher, being a primary school (first four years here) either
required a university degree and some fairly serious examination, or enrolling
in a special high school. They did have pedagogy classes (4 hrs/week, I
think?) and 1 or 2 additional hours of psychology compared to other high
school programs, but this was otherwise a regular high school and at the
wonderful age of 18, you were a primary school teacher.

My mother later decided she also wants a degree in Psychology (she got back to
school for her BSc and an MSc -- quite bravo for someone who was, at that
point, in her forties), but she often tells me how much of what she learned
was in the job, not in school. It helped that she had to put on several
hundreds of hours of supervised teaching.

On the other hand, she reckons that she was doing it wrong in many aspects
that did not have directly to with pedagogy. She has now come to realize that
for long time -- her first ten, fifteen years on the job even! -- the way she
handled a lot of aspects involved in working with kids outside the matter of
teaching them this concept or that method were wrong.

Unfortunately, no amount of study can prepare you for that. Having a well-
paid, secure job, a safe family life and a frustration-free existence is even
more important. A lot of her colleagues (she doesn't live in quite the most
pleasant place of this world, albeit it's in the better half) vent a lot of
anger and misery on the kids they teach, wrecking generation after generation.
I'm actually one of their byproducts -- I passionately hated going to school,
and the whole thing was so stinky that even my parents, while not actively
encouraging me to skip classes, were at least not making it harder.

