Ed Schools at the abyss

Not so shocking revelation from the Cleveland Plain Dealer on colleges of education. To me, it is amazing that this issue has not outraged more parents and students. (Note that there are always exceptions and there are many schools working to improve and all people who generalize are jerks). We do not have a lot of exceptional Education schools in the US and we cannot have a world class teaching workforce if we aren’t more selective of who gets in the classroom.

The article states that “because universities often rely on education schools as 'cash cows', low admissions standards are too often allowed because they help boost enrollments and revenues, he found. Some schools accept 100 percent of their applicants.”

It is a fairly balanced article and does point out that Ed Schools have not defined what it takes to be a great teacher and can't really improve until that is completed. And to be fair, I guess they have only had 100 or so years to figure that out.

If the universities want to compete with alternative certification programs, they need the best possible teacher going into the classroom and currently that is just not the case. Finding out what works, including which courses provide the best support to students and teachers, will ultimately increase demand for college of education students, allowing them to increase selectivity and build quality.

Until then, more studies keep showing that alt cert teachers do just as well as teachers coming through standard routes (here and here). If the value is not there, why would you pay that much and take that much time to go through a standard route if you are no better prepared then an alternative route?