Kati Haycock, president at the Education Trust and a technical adviser on the project, says they “have a great blueprint” to work with.
A $5 million project in the works since early 2011, the review is set for release this April as one of the latest additions to the college rankings published by U.S. News & World Report.
Creators of the Teacher Prep Review say the syllabi and other materials they are examining to produce the review are sufficient to determine if teacher prep programs are meeting a series of standards that NCTQ describes as the “nuts and bolts of building better teachers.”
Those standards — there are 18 in all — include how selective a program is, for instance accepting only students with a 3.0 GPA or higher, or whom tests show are in the top-half of the college-going population.
Other standards include whether a program prepares teacher candidates to teach reading skills to students at risk of reading failure and making sure that teacher candidates have a “strong student teaching experience.” If programs are found to have indicators that they met a particular standard, they will be designated as having a “strong design” in that particular area.
“I think you can judge programs by design,” Arthur McKee, managing director of teacher preparation studies at NCTQ, told Diverse during a recent visit to NCTQ headquarters. He noted that NCTQ will maintain editorial control over the Teacher Prep Review, even though it’s being published in U.S. News & World Report.
McKee likened the standards by which NCTQ is judging the teacher prep programs to design principles for a bridge. That is to say, if proven design principles are adhered to, one can be rest assured that the bridge will be structurally sound.
