WASHINGTON — Even though the U.S. Department of Education’s proposed regulation to bring more accountability to the field of teacher preparation is imperfect, schools of education should still embrace the effort to use data to assess the effectiveness of their graduates in the classroom, the leader of a group of education deans argued Wednesday.
“What’s really upsetting to me and disappointing to me is that we’re actually at an interesting moment where higher education in general is being asked to demonstrate impact,” said Ben Riley, executive director of Deans for Impact, a Texas-based organization that wants to improve student-learning outcomes through transforming the field of educator preparation.
“We could actually develop an incredibly robust system of teacher preparation and, frankly, teaching overall, and yet the very people who should be leading that movement are fighting it,” Riley said.
Riley made those remarks Wednesday during a panel discussion titled, “Educating Tomorrow’s Teachers: Are U.S. Education Department Regulations for Schools of Education a Help or a Hindrance?”
If anyone had any doubt that Riley was directing his criticism toward the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) — which has criticized the proposed teacher prep regulation as “federal overreach — those doubts were removed when Riley pointedly asked AACTE President and CEO Sharon P. Robinson, a co-panelist at the event, why she opposed the proposed regulation.
“If I felt those regulations facilitated and leveraged the work in the community to really understand productivity and outcome measures, we would be celebrating them,” Robinson responded.
The proposed regulation calls for states that receive funds under the Higher Education Act to create a rating system for their teacher preparation programs, which would be rated at one of four levels: low performing, at risk, effective or exceptional.
