Northwestern University
School of Education and Social Policy Evanston, Illinois Institution Comment Comments submitted by: Dr. Penelope L. Peterson, Professor and Dean, School of Education and Social Policy
The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) believes that “every child deserves effective teachers,” and so do we. At the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University, we take pride in the quality of our undergraduate and graduate programs in teacher education as well as in the quality of the teachers who graduate from our programs. Indeed, US News and World Report ranks us consistently in the top ten schools of education in the nation. We believe that the data collected by NCTQ support those judgments of the quality of our programs and our students. Northwestern University is one of the leading private research institutions in the country, and as leaders of a research-based teacher education program, we value scientific inquiry. We agree with NCTQ when the Council states that school districts, teacher unions, and schools of higher education all comprise part of the equation when looking for a solution to what is wrong with American education today, but we also believe that inquiry into a solution for a complex problem is best begun with reasoned discourse among the actors who can affect change. We hope that the NCTQ’s findings will lead these actors to engage in constructive substantive discourse about teacher education and the important role of teacher education in affecting improvement in K-12 education. We look forward to that conversation.
www.nctq.org/edschoolreports
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