Teacher Prep Or Perps?

You’re going to see more stuff like this, efforts to hold teacher preparation programs accountable. In the public relations debate about this issue often what happens is that the ed schools hold out the best programs as cover for the rest. For instance as the chart accompanying the article shows, 95 percent of the students from the flagship U of Michigan passed the certification test on the first try. But the thing is, Michigan doesn’t prepare most of the state’s teachers. Same pattern is true in other states. Stanford doesn’t prepare most of California’s, Harvard doesn’t prepare most Massachusetts teachers and U of Virginia doesn’t prepare most teachers there. It’s the lesser known schools where the action is, but they fly below the PR radar.