MAKES NATIONAL COUNCIL ON TEACHER QUALITY HONOR ROLL
Eastern
Kentucky University’s teacher education program has received national honors.
The
University’s undergraduate program to prepare students to teach at the secondary
level ranks in the top 9 percent nationally, according to a report issued today
by The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) and U.S. News & World
Report. The joint report measures the level of quality and success of
institutions that prepare 99 percent of the nation’s traditionally trained new
teachers. Of the 1,200 elementary and secondary programs for which NCTQ was
able to assign an overall program rating, only 105 programs made the Honor Roll
by earning at least 3 stars out of a possible 4.
The EKU
program was one of only four programs at three Kentucky universities to make
the Honor Roll. Joining EKU on the Honor Roll were UofL and UK with two
programs. Only four institutions nationwide – neither in Kentucky – earned 4
stars.
“As
the product of eight years of development and ten pilot studies, the standards
applied here are derived from strong research, the practices of high-performing
nations and states, consensus views of experts, the demands of the Common Core
State Standards (and other standards for college and career readiness) and
occasionally just common sense, such as our insistence that student teachers be
trained only by effective teachers,” the report stated. “(The standards)
are entirely consistent with the recommendations of the National Research
Council in its 2010 report.
“Breathing
new life into teaching requires that we begin at the beginning: who gets in and
what kind of training is provided.”
Eastern’s
other teacher education programs all received 2 or 2 ½ stars, still ahead of
hundreds of institutions nationwide. For more information about programs
offered by the EKU College of Education, visit coe.eku.edu.
The
complete NCTQ report can be seen at www.nctq.org/dmsView/Teacher_Prep_Review_2013_Report-tsv2013618105017.
4 comments:
Okay, so I am not dismissing EKU's quality of teacher prep instruction. I have my GT Certification from EKU. And yet, I have to say, the NCTQ is pretty bogus in their methodology and criteria. Their bias is explained at length by Linda Darling-Hammond and Diana Ravitch.
Check it:
http://www.teachingquality.org/content/stop-silliness-let%E2%80%99s-get-serious-about-teacher-preparation
Not crapping on your article. I love what you do here. This advocacy blog is essential to our community.
Much as it pains me to diminish in any way what I see as a fine teacher prep program, I must agree that NCTQ methodology is largely bogus. Still, that does not mean that ELU is bad because they said we were good.
Totally agreed and I hope I represented that in my previous comment.
Yeah, it kind of reminds me of when Dr. Whitlock would say EKU was identified as being one of the best places to work by is employees and one of the best schools for being veteran friendly but in the same breath recognize the success of the EKU bass fishing team. (No offense intended to Bass fishing folks.)
Sort of sad that someone went to the trouble to put this out there with the hopes that it would garner positive attention from folks who don't really know any better.
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