This is the 17th in Mercedes Schneider’s reviews of the board of the National Council on Teacher Quality. In this post, Schneider posts grades for all the board members. She includes links to the earlier posts.

She has undertaken this mission because the NCTQ has assumed the role as the arbiter of the quality of teacher education programs in the U.S. Like any other sector, there are undoubtedly good ones and bad ones, but that is not the question Schneider poses in this series. Instead, she has set herself the task of evaluating the evaluators?

She asks such questions as, are they qualified to judge teacher education programs? What is their relevant experience? Have they ever been a teacher? Do they have knowledge and understanding of teacher preparation? Do they have financial conflicts of interest? Do they approach this assignment free of bias?

NCTQ includes some of the leading stars of the corporate reform movement. The organization was created by the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in 2000 to promote alternatives to teacher education programs, which TBF disdained. In 2001, as the organization struggled to survive, then-Secretary of Education Rod Paige gave it $5 million.

Today, as Schneider points out, NCTQ struggles no more. It is handsomely funded and it is partnering with US News to evaluate the nation’s schools of education. Many, suspecting NCTQ’s bona fides or good will or bias, have refused to cooperate.