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Ed school education
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has little patience for education schools. In a speech at the prestigious Columbia Teachers College he warned that the "time to cling to the status quo is passed," and stated that "many, if not most of the nation's 1450 schools, colleges, and departments of education are doing a mediocre job."
He is right. A recent posting by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity now reminds us just how low education school standards can be. The CCAP found that the average GPA in 2009 for education majors at twenty of the top public research universities is 3.72, compared to an average student GPA of 3.13. At the highly ranked University of Washington, of the grades given by the education school, a staggering 76% were A's and 21% were A-'s.
Along with these glowing grades, we now have the preliminary findings of the Social Science Research Council that the predicted cognitive growth of education majors, as measured by the Collegiate Learning Assessment, is about the lowest of any college major. Secretary Duncan, like Secretary Rod Paige before him, justly blames education programs for so poorly equipping the earnest young men and women who want to serve effectively in our nation's schools.
There are models of reform to study, among them the education programs at Boston University and at Hunter College, and ACTA has published a guide, Teachers Who Can: How Informed Trustees Can Ensure Teacher Quality. With evidence of bad education programs mounting, the nation needs unrelenting trustees who won't take excuses.
Posted by Michael Poliakoff on April 14, 2010 at April 14, 2010 11:41 AM
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