Prospective Teachers: Abilities and Testing

FOCUS What trends listed here especially describe your teacher-education program? Do any of the trends describe directions in which you wish your program would head? alternative certification programs are not adequately providing skilled teachers where needs are greatest; and that the training of future teachers “adds far too little value” to their skills and capabilities.22

education Schools project An organization named the Education Schools Project similarly released the results of a five-year study of teacher-education programs. Its “Educating School Teachers” report concluded that as many as one-quarter to onethird do an excellent job, but that most future teachers are being prepared in programs that too often have inadequate curricula, low standards, and faculty out of touch with the schools. The report included recommendations (among others) that “failing” schools of education should be closed, “quality” programs should be expanded, scholarships should be provided to attract the “best and brightest” into teaching, and quality control should be strengthened.23

national Council on Teacher Quality Assessments of teacher-preparation programs also have been conducted by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ). The Council collects information on candidate selection and graduate exit policies and practices, course offerings and syllabi, clinical observation and student teaching arrangements, provision of mentoring, and related matters. Its 2014 report stated that the “country is finally waking up to the critical importance of improving teacher-preparation quality.” It also reported that of the 1,612 programs for which it collected data, only 107 were classified in its highest category of quality. Many educators, some of them highly respected leaders in teacher education, were publicly critical of the Council’s data collection methods and analysis.24

1-5 ProsPective teachers: abilities and testing

In recent years, much discussion has centered on improving the quality of the teaching workforce, particularly on improving the abilities of prospective teachers and on testing their competence for teaching. Discussions of the quality of the teaching workforce frequently focus on ability scores derived from standardized tests such as the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) and the American College Test (ACT). Among potential teachers, such test scores declined in the 1970s, as they did for students majoring in business and numerous other subjects. For example, between 1973 and 1981, the average SAT verbal score of college students intending to teach fell from 418 to 397. Since 1982, however, test scores of college students who say they intend to become teachers have appreciably increased and generally resemble those of students majoring in business, psychology, and the health professions. Data also show that the SAT percentile rank of new teachers increased from the 45th percentile in 1993–94 to the 50th percentile in 2008–09. In addition, some recent studies have found that teachers’ average test scores are about the same as those of other college-educated adults.25

22Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., et al., Teaching at Risk: Progress and Potholes (New York: The Teaching Commission, 2006). 23Arthur Levine, Educating School Teachers (Washington, DC: Education Schools Project, 2006), available at www.edschools.org. See also Lyndsey Layton, “Education Department Moves to Regulate Teacher Education Programs,” Washington Post, November 25, 2014, available at www.washingtonpost.com. 24Julie Greenberg, Kate Walsh, and Arthur McKee, 2014 Teacher Prep Review (Washington, DC: National Council on Teacher Quality, 2014), available at www.nctq.org; Linda DarlingHammond, “Why the NCTQ Teacher Prep Ratings Are Nonsense,” Washington Post, June 18, 2013, available at www.washingtonpost.com; and Chris Kardish, “States Are Strengthening Teacher Preparation Laws,” June 25, 2014, posting by Governing the States and Localities, available at www.governing.com. 25Drew H. Gitomer, Teacher Quality in a Changing Policy Landscape (Princeton, N.J.: Educational Testing Service, 2007), available at www.ets.org; and Dan Goldhaber and Joe Walch, “Gains in Teacher Quality,” Education Next (Winter 2014), available at www.educationnext.org.