Dive Brief:
- The Minnesota state teaching board put the University of Minnesota-Duluth's education school on a one-year probation after administrators submitted inaccurate program information.
- The college will not be able to enroll new students over the next year and current students may face licensing problems as they graduate, although the school is applying for variances from the teaching board to prevent that, the Duluth News Tribune reports.
- The variance would allow students to apply for teaching licenses after graduating from the school’s dual-licensure early childhood/special education program as well as the early childhood program and the secondary education program, according to the article.
Dive Insight:
The troubles at the University of Minnesota-Duluth have been piling on since at least January, when more than 20 students found out they wouldn’t be able to get their teaching licenses because of filing errors by the college of education. Last month, the state teaching board revoked approval for all of the University of Minnesota-Duluth’s secondary education programs. While administrators and faculty argue that the sanctions follow strictly from paperwork mistakes rather than curriculum quality issues, current students are being faced with uncertainty about their ability to get teaching licenses — and jobs — which likely will affect the program’s reputation in the long term.