Mercedes Schneider here reviews the controversial NCTQ report.
Having reviewed the members of the board, she concludes that NCTQ is uniquely unqualified to pass judgement on the nation’s colleges of education.
NCTQ is not a research organization. It is not a think tank. It is not a professional organization. It is an advocacy group and few of its board members have ever taught or have any direct knowledge of teaching or teacher preparation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Not only have few of them ever taught, most of them stand to profit off of the degradation of public opinion regarding public education.
has the mainstream press questioned this group and their findings? You all know what I mean, Journalism, a lost art these days.
Banderson, the mainstream press seldom questions “reports” and “studies” by advocacy groups. They typically just write whatever the claim is because they lack the knowledge to ask questions or to seek out knowledgeable critics.
Journalism is an OWNED art these days, since most mainstream media are under the ownership of corporate “reformers,” including PBS and NPR.
It is beyond comprehension that this group has published opinions about teacher prep in our colleges and universities. What do they think of TFA? Now that’s prep.
What do they think of TFA? Well, Wendy Kopp is on their Advisory Board. http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/06/nctqs-lausd-reports-highly-questionable.html
Wow.
Today, upon realizing and really thinking about the fact that TFA recruits do not take Praxis tests, really put all this in perspective for me (I can be slow sometimes).
In high school I had a shirt that said “It is personalities, not principles, that rule the age.” I painted it myself just trying to be cool and artsy. But it is true in this instance.
No Praxis tests???
Wendy Kopp on the board of NCTQ?
This is like a Carl Hiaasen novel.
I hope my sarcasm and frustration wasn’t hidden. When the media is owned by the supporters of NCTQ, calls for peer review, or even a decent question remain unheard.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
Mercedes Schneider does it again, thank you! Great report. Very interesting to read the tight connections among the various corporate groups rampaging through pub schls. Same people keep showing up at head of various groups all funded by the same few billionaire sources. This effort has been going on for a while but it took off with a vengeance once Obama took office in Jan 09 when Eli Broad’s protege Arne Duncan was appointed US Secy of Educ after wrecking the Chicago Schls. With Obama putting a Broadie at head of US pub schl policy, Broad declared, “The stars have aligned.” Since then, the speed and the extent of the corporate takeover of pub schls has been breathtaking.
Letter to the Editor in today’s Los Angeles Times:
http://skrashen.blogspot.com/2013_07_01_archive.html
Re “How to train a teacher,” Opinion, July 3, and “Teach the children well,” Letters, July 5
“Eli Broad’s criticism of American schools of education as well as the letters commenting on his op-ed article missed an important, but apparently little known fact: our educational system has been highly successful.
When researchers control for poverty, American students’ international test scores rank near the top of the world.
The products of our educational system do very well: The US economy is currently ranked as the 5th most innovative in the world out of 142, according to the 2013 Global Innovation Index, which is based in part on the availability of education, new patents and the publication of scientific and technical journal articles.
Evaluating schools of education should be based on real world results, not descriptions of courses and admission standards. The kind of criticism Broad makes is like criticizing an Olympic gold medalist because experts have decided that she did not do enough sit-ups in training. ”
Stephen Krashen
[Professor emeritus of education at USC]
Original article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-broad-teacher-prep-review-20130703,0,1984429.story
Letters to the editor: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/la-le-0705-friday-eli-broad-teachers-20130705,0,5455383.story
In the back of the report can see an endorsement by all of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs! Ha, ha, ha
It’s ironic that NCTQ has any specific requirements at all, including minimum GPAs, SATs or GREs, since they support alternative certification programs like ABCTE which is a correspondence program and requires only a BA. But then, correspondence and single pedagogy military style drill sergeant teacher prep programs, which they did NOT rate in their report, are like the unregulated charter and voucher schools that corporate “reformers” so adore, compared to the over-regulated public schools and, if they have their way, traditional Teacher Ed programs. It’s readily apparent that the former are the pampered darlings that corporate “reformers” want to keep and expand and the latter are the pesky dependent step children they aim to be rid of and destroy.
They’re all about destroying the teacher profession so that any idiot off the street can teach.
After all, the end game of the privatizers is online “education,” with kids being stuck in front of computers all day long, monitored by teacher aides.
Anybody from Dallas ISD realize yet that Mike Miles is on the board of the NCTQ?
This should do wonders for NCTQ’s already negligible credibility.
National Council on Teacher Quality teams up with SearchSoft Solutions, Inc. to boost profits
http://atthechalkface.com/2013/07/09/national-council-on-teacher-quality-teams-up-with-searchsoft-solutions-inc-to-boost-profits/