Ed Fuller, a professor of education policy at Pennsylvania State University, analyzes the many flaws of the NCTQ rankings of teacher education programs. His is the most thorough and devastating critique of these ratings. He strips them of any legitimacy.
Read his blog here.
Read his full critique in the Journal of Teacher Education here.
What’s wrong with the NCTQ report: says Fuller, almost everything. The methodology, the research base, the lack of evidence supporting the standards, the focus on inputs rather than performance, and much more.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Has anyone yet noticed that the “Number One” university is a virtual university (out of Utah)?
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I include in this comment something I posted yesterday on this blog re NCTQ.
Leaving behind the Rheeality Distortion Fields of RheeWorld without a single wistful backward glance, here on Planet Reality we look at how things actually, truly, verifiably work out.
How did NCTQ’s last round of ratings work out? 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/
Hmmmm…
And we should accept NCTQ’s ratings without considering whether they’re even rating something that in actual fact exists?
“I reject that mind-set.” [Michelle Rhee]
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
😎
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It’s kind of like a Cosmo quiz, right?
You want to know how you rate, but really you are not going to alter your life that much according to what you score on a Cosmo quiz.
??
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Success and failure are relative to purpose.
Relative to their purpose, the rankings are succeeding so far.
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Another self appointed measurement cult, and another rubric. Groundhog day in education.
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The accountability part we did to ourselves.
Public school invited that in (or the politicians who represented us—even the education lovers). And now reform movement has used it to their advantage.
We can’t get out of that one blaming others. We have to take that one on the chin and fix it.
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And another sign that it is not public school that is on the defense.
It is actually the reform movement that is on the defense because they know that they cannot compete with the strong history and solidarity of public schooling and therefore they have crafted and are crafting a good offense (to cover up their own defense).
When it comes to time well spent and meaningful interaction for children and youth in school, the traditional preparation programs are the best there is. You cannot refute several years of courses reflecting on the practice, and a guided internship/student teaching experience before going into the classroom.
And underprepared teacher will get eaten alive by students (it is the nature of youth). TFA was experiencing that feedback from their corps. . .in walks KIPP. From there MIchele Rhee (who likes being a celebrity more than anything) decided to be high and mighty and diss the people who were making a good faith effort to meet children where they are.
Public schools reflect the context of a child’s life.
Underprepared educators cannot cope with children who are reflecting their realities, and thus in walks the charter—where more variables can be controlled.
Enough of the BS, right?
Flip it around.
New catch phrases.
“Meeting children where they are.”
“Public schools reflect the world children live in.”
“Well prepared teachers know how to meet children where they are, as they reflect the world they live in.”
Now, I don’t mean we don’t need to make improvements. We do. We can. Time to put whatever it is that makes National Board so desirable into practice in our universities, by our universities (our own versions, by state). I also don’t mean Yay Union! Score one for you.
My concern is students.
I also wish there wasn’t such a clash between labor unions and corporations. Why can’t they just be the yin and the yang and get along? That would be my Pollyanna wish. Because I think they can.
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One of the criticism made by Ed Fuller is that the NCTQ focuses on inputs rather than outcomes. Don’t traditional measures of school quality like teacher certification, teacher graduate credit hours, and seniority also focus on the inputs when what we are really interested in is the output of student learning?
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Yes, but I think we all agree that the “accountability output measures,” such as we have been experimenting with as of late, are a colossal problem. So, yes. . .we need to tweak things. But I don’t think we need to throw out the baby with the bath water.
It’s not prudent!! If for no other reason. It is not prudent for a state to throw away its public schools and university teaching programs. This is not horse drawn buggy classes perpetuated in fear of railroads. Our university programs are not that bad. If we need to attract a higher caliber of student, then we need to pay teachers more.
There is work to do. But the fatalist, defeatest, Wendy Kopp won mentality is poison and pathetic for this country. We need to snap out of this. It’s just awfully depressing to watch.
Dear Wendy:
Your senior project has gotten out of hand. Please call off the dogs.
Love,
mothers whose mothers were teachers
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I would add:
Please call off the dogs so we can be a country again.
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Here’s a totally different take on “disruption” than the one view we’ve all heard a million times:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/06/23/140623fa_fact_lepore?currentPage=all
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Isn’t the real point…who the hell is the NCTQ and why no one should care because of their true agenda? Don’t they think TFA is the standard to which all teacher prep should stoop to? Get the word out about who they are, what they want, why they do it, who finances it, and their agenda. Should run these crooks out of town and shut them down. How dare they have the gall.
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Therio: the difficulty is they have a tie to Fordham Institute that receives money from Gates and then publishes the NCTQ reports out of “Cambridge MA” affiliate with Harvard etc. etc. using authority and funds and propaganda etc so we do need to be concerned. Some people will tell you that “F.I.” is over the top but they do harm in mis-informing taxpayers, parents, and policy decision makers with their propaganda and ties to NCTQ…. otherwise I could dismiss the whole report .
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The study at the start of this discussion should be read. Among other findings it shows that a majority of teachers in Texas by-pass university preparation programs for teachers. The character of these alternative preparation programs is largely unmapped.
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the national reading panel prepared excellent documents and suggestions (it’s overdue for an update now); however, NCTQ took the work of the reading panel, good professionals like Louisa Moats, for example (and others) , and “reified ” it reducing it down to bare bones and then said everyone must do it this way or your program is not valid.
We support evidence based learning and efforts such as the What Works Clearinghouse (the information on ELL is quite helpful; it fits in quite neatly with what the court is mandating they do in Boston schools for ELL students) ; the work of people like Louisa Moats (and others from the national reading panel) was used in building the reading program for teachers being prepared in our special education at the university–we’re quite proud of the conceptual framework that includes a broad perspective and literature references.
It’s the way that NCTQ takes just a portion from the reading panel recommendations and narrows the goals that bothers me (in addition to the process to get to their results). We have had the reading wars for decades ; the extent to which NCTQ takes a “slash and burn” approach is disheartening …. when all other viewpoints are cast aside and declared heretical or non-conformist or whatever.
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over the weekend Jack Hassard prepared two blog posts on NCTQ.
This is the most recent one (found at Art of Teaching)
Resisting the National Council on Teacher Quality’s Propaganda
by Jack Hassard
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