With the release of the NCTQ ratings of teacher preparation programs, this is a propitious time to review its origins.
It was created by the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute. It floundered, then was rescued by a grant of $5 million from Secretary of Education Rod Paige in the early days of the Bush administration. It is not a research organization. It is an advocacy organization.
Its judgments about Ed schools rely heavily on course catalogues and reading lists, not site visits. Its criteria for success include evidence of teaching phonics and preparing to teach the Common Core. If Mr. Smith and Ms. Jones are preparing to teach in a state that did not adopt the Common Core, why should they be prepared to teach it?
When I spoke to the AACTE (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education), I advised them to insert the words “Common Core” and “phonics” liberally in their catalogues. The key to higher ratings.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ouch! Not the old one-two punch again. Timing is everything and how clever of NCTQ to press release their rubbish right on the heels of a media-hyped attack on due process tenure laws. This is a multi-million dollar coordinated assault. It is strategic and cold-blooded. We are warm-blooded and our hearts continue to beat with the rhythm of a democratically-inspired public school system.
For a minute, I misread your “clever” for “cleaver.” Fits, actually.
Yes! Cleaver is exactly right.
It’s all BS, we all know it. Getting together with our grade level for meetings, rehashing the results of the latest meaningless multiple choice district/state written test, then writing up the results with the appropriate language, using all the buzz words we’ve come to know so well. It pays, time wise, to have a writer in the group, one who can churn out the same trimester meaningless BS, sending it on to the principal who must gather it all, add her/his more BS and off it goes to the district office. What happens and where it goes after that no one knows. Certainly they couldn’t pay someone enough to read it all, instead it must be sorted and filed away,
Wouldn’t it all be more truthful if we just went back to the days when teachers were thought of as being inspired and creative people, people who loved learning and wanted to help make the world a better place to live.
We do the same thing at our collaboration and yeah, where does it go ? This time could be spent doing lesson study. It is what teachers in Asian and Eurpeon countries do – where the focus is on the lesson and improving it! as it is already assumed in those places that the teachers are of a certain competence level. This obession with good teacher-bad teacher is getting us nowhere and is a huge wasre of time and money.
It is absolutely terrifying how the Fordham Institute dominates education policy, if one looks at the ed reform situation in Ohio.
Does no one look at their work in Ohio? What good is an experiment if you never, ever look at results?
I don’t know what the aspirational, think-tank plan was for public education in this state, but the reality is sobering, or should be.
Reblogged this on jsheelmusic.
And yet here’s charlatan Amanda Ripley citing NCTQ as some kind of “proof” that teacher quality is the key to “reforming” American public education:
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2014/06/american_schools_need_better_teachers_so_let_s_make_it_harder_to_become.html
Let’s make it harder to become one? My god, it’s hard enough all ready and the education is the easiest part. I’ve been a better teacher in the last 5 years than I was in my first 5 and this year I’m onto my 26th year. It was only through relentless determination, a love for learning, and a wish to help make the world a better place to live in, that I survived at all. Oh and the wisdom of my first year’s vice principal who said, “Take all of your enthusiasm and altruistic spirit and put it into your heart, and now start dealing with reality”.
Speaking of questionable “school reform” initiatives from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, here’s the National Education Policy Center’s critique of their latest:
Earnest Oversimplification:
Plan for states to turn school reform over to nonprofits may be sincere, but it lacks evidence and ignores the real world.
http://tinyurl.com/k7fm3d2
NEPC’s polite title may understate the potential impact of Fordham’s initiative. In my opinion it looks more like intentional sabotage.
I think I saw that “Western Governors University” “in Utah” (it’s a totally online deal) is ranked #1 according to NCTQ. One of my colleagues had a student teacher from there a couple of years ago — he was the worst ever and couldn’t even finish his placement — he was super-irresponsible with kids and seemed to have problems with content knowledge (this was a secondary position). I heard he didn’t make it through his second year of employment and don’t know the reason.
Obviously I know that one anecdote does not valid statistics make, but that was my one experience with WGU — and the fact that it is “totally online” does make me suspicious!
Western Governors University was established in 1997 by 19 state governors. It is a neoliberal privatization model and just as suspect as all the non-educator governors in the National Governors Association who decided they should determine K12 national education policy by requiring the Common Core.
NCTQ = OXYMORON
I strongly urge every viewer of this blog who is for a “better education for all” to click on the link provided in the posting. Diane has crucial inside information that makes it indispensable reading.
Let’s get some perspective, folks.
From the blog of Aaron Pallas, 6/19/2013, a posting entitled “The Trouble with NCTQ’s ratings of teacher-prep programs”:
[start quote]
To be sure, few of us relish being put under the microscope. But it’s another matter entirely to be seen via a funhouse mirror. My institution, Teachers College at Columbia University, didn’t receive a summary rating of zero to four stars in the report, but the NCTQ website does rate some features of our teacher-prep programs. I was very gratified to see that our undergraduate elementary and secondary teacher-education programs received four out of four stars for student selectivity. Those programs are really tough to get into—nobody gets admitted. And that’s not hyperbole; the programs don’t exist.
That’s one of the dangers of rating academic programs based solely on documents such as websites and course syllabi. You might miss something important—like “Does this program exist?”
[end quote]
Link: http://eyeoned.org/content/the-trouble-with-nctqs-ratings-of-teacher-prep-programs_478/
What Aaron Pallas points out is a feature, not a bug, of the SOP of NCTQ.
I end with an observation I made some ago in reference to last year’s NCTQ ratings. Basing an allegedly critical rating system on artifacts like course syllabi and online offerings—and very very little else—is like going to a restaurant and naively asking if they serve vegetarian. I am not a vegan, but friends who are have pointed out to me that you can’t just go by what’s printed on the menu or what the waiter or manager says. You have to ask very simple and basic questions such as “Do you cook your ‘vegetarian’ dishes in sauces that contain meat products?” And it helps a lot ask others who have eaten there before.
This is another example of how the leaders and enablers and enforcers of the self-styled “education reform” movement are hyper-critical of genuine teaching and learning and utterly delusional when it comes to anything they think favors charters & vouchers & privatization.
A very dead, a very old and a very Greek guy knew the edufrauds long long ago:
“A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true. ” [Demosthenes]
And for your drink would you like the hemlock or arsenic NCTQ this evening with your generous serving of $tudent $ucce$$?
😎
Let’s not forget this piece on the professional gathering tactics of NCTQ:
http://atthechalkface.com/2014/05/23/nctq-gets-caught-in-a-data-collecting-lie/
We’re keeping no secrets; everything you want to know can be found on our website.
We are appealing to students on public and private campuses to help by sharing these basic materials in order that we can produce a fair and valid rating of program quality. We are paying stipends of $25 to $200 for the materials we need (much less than what many institutions are effectively charging).
If you can’t help us directly, send this notice on to three friends. Like us on Facebook. Tweet using the hashtag #teacherprep. See which institutions we’re rating and still need documents from.
To answer the question for those of us who are AI: “Nowhere Close To Quality”.
Their evaluation of teacher ed programs in Delaware- and there aren’t many- seemed pretty close to what I’ve experienced in my 26 years of teaching there.