The Downward Spiral

Joanne Jacobs has an excellent post on the academic issues with college students and college graduates. I wholeheartedly agree with many of the viewpoints listed and it is well worth your time to read. At ABCTE, we continue to see this problem first hand.

Last year, we received a grant for our Teach & Inspire scholarship program which is designed to recruit teachers locally for high need school districts in high need subject areas. For this first cohort, we received over 400 applications for 300 slots. Unfortunately, we were only able to fill 160 of those 300 slots because we could not find enough qualified people among the 400 applicants.

What we saw was poor writing and communications skills from people who had earned a college degree. How do you earn a college degree and not know how to write at even the most basic level? Our scholarship review team was stunned at the lack of knowledge in many of these college graduates.

My ultimate fear is that the people we rejected will apply for other “alternative certification” programs that allow you to start teaching almost immediately. Since the selectivity of these programs is non-existent (with the exception of course work) and since they have already received a degree without any real academic skills, we can assume that they will pass and continue to teach.

And the downward spiral continues…