NCTQ president Kate Walsh said her group’s rankings of teacher prep programs differ from others in that it is not dominated by traditional “elite” institutions.
Like its inaugural predecessor that lamented an “industry of mediocrity,” the latest review paints what it calls a “grim picture” of teacher preparation in the United States: four out of five of the 2,400 teacher preparation programs in the United States are “weak or even failing.”
The review acknowledges, however, that many improvements—such as higher grade-point average requirements or college entrance exam scores for entry into teacher prep programs—are afoot throughout the nation and will take time to yield positive results.
Probably the most significant difference between this year’s review and the first review is that the new review ranks teacher prep programs numerically, whereas the first review just rated them with stars.
In what some view as a surprise finding, under NCTQ’s ranking scheme, Western Governors University came out as the top training program in the nation for secondary teachers—a distinction that a WGU administrator says “validates” its online, competency-based approach to teacher preparation.
In another unexpected finding, “elite” institutions didn’t dominate NCTQ’s top ranked teacher prep programs like they often do in other college rankings.
“The list of who’s the best in the country doesn’t look much like other people’s lists,” NCTQ president Kate Walsh said in a conference call with news reporters Tuesday.
