Dive Brief:
- As teacher prep programs undergo increasing national scrutiny, a November National Council on Teacher Quality report asserting that teacher prep programs lack the same rigor as other majors is making the rounds.
- The researchers behind the report, "Easy A’s and What’s Behind Them,” surveyed 500 institutions and found that education majors graduate with honors at a higher rate than their peers studying other subjects.
- The NCTQ argued in the report that this is proof that teacher training programs are not rigorous enough, and that the assignments in teacher training programs are often too broad and subjective to effectively prepare candidates for the classroom.
Dive Insight:
Not everyone is buying the report and its findings. Linda Houser, incoming president of the Association of Teacher Educators, argues that it's quite a leap to say a high GPA automatically translates to less rigor.
The NCTQ says adding rigor to courses can be as easy as being more specific. For example, instead of assigning a project where teacher candidates must create a lesson plan, schools of ed should assign very specific projects that deal with certain types of students or grade levels.
Ultimately, regardless of how specific school gets, the art of teaching is difficult to fully grasp when it's still being discussed in the theoretical. Ensuring teacher candidates have more time in classrooms, working with real students, is the best way to get them familiar with the demands and rigor of the profession.
Regardless of how one feels about the NCTQ report, it does highlight the national discussion around teacher training and how a revamp may be necessary.