new teacher

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.

I received a great comment from tweenteacher on my recent post on alternative certification. She makes a very strong point about the quality of the courses at her Ed school and the fact that her on the job training is what really helped her succeed. During legislative committee hearings this year, I also heard that some of the courses teachers are forced to take have no value.

Great post over at Joanne Jacob's site on some TFA teachers struggling to survive. As is usually the case, people find their political point in the article and in the comments use that point to push their case instead of looking at the big picture presented.

Here are the key points as I see it: