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Duncan on education programs
According to today's Chronicle of Higher Education, Education Secretary Arne Duncan is slated to give a speech at the University of Virginia that will praise the teaching profession, but criticize the schools of education that are responsible for training a great number of our nation's elementary and secondary teachers. Calling teacher training programs the "neglected stepchild" of higher education, Duncan reportedly will criticize them for, among other things, focusing too much on theory and too little on having students master core areas of knowledge. He is also expected to call for greater accountability for student learning and more rigorous standards.
We couldn't agree more. As ACTA has long argued in our guides and reports pertaining on the subject, education programs need to give students strong academic backgrounds in the subjects they plan to teach and they need to adhere to the same level of academic rigor as other departments in the university. Here's hoping Secretary Duncan's speech will inspire them to move in that direction.
Posted by Sandra Diaz on October 09, 2009 at October 9, 2009 05:15 PM
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