Politico.com reports today that the General Accounting Office wants the U.S. Departmemt of Education to exercise greater oversight over teacher education programs. The question is how quality will be judged? Will it be the pass rates on Pearson’s EdTPA? Or the VAM ratings based on student test scores after graduation? If the former, expect to see a sharp decline in the proportion of African-American and Latino teachers? If the latter, expect to see teachers avoiding special education and schools in poor districts?
Incentives have unintended consequences.
As long as they are beefing up oversight at ED, why don’t they close down some of the predatory for-profit colleges that sell worthless diplomas and saddle young people with debt?
If the U. S. Department of Education had the capacity to oversee any sector,
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Honestly, I don’t think they will have to worry about it. So few young people will enter this pitiful job. It is no longer a profession. No one will pay that much money to be poor and abused.
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You should check out the Young Teachers Collective.
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The first evaluation should be a review of Arne Duncan. Failing in both, values and vision, the prerequisites for leadership, his review could focus on managerial performance.
Is morale high at the Dept. of Ed.? Is everyone on the Ed. team working in concert to fulfill the Gates’ agenda? Has public relations been successful in convincing the public, that American democracy is enhanced by privatization? Has he garnered respect for the role of the government in education?
IMO, wrong man for the wrong job.
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Arne is way below standard on any rubric There is no amount of tutoring that could even bring him up to a ‘developing’ level. No growth potential at all.
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AMEN!
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Sadly, you are right. It’s incredible to think that teacher education courses and those fraudulent administrative certification courses could be any worse. But as Diane pointed out, now they will have a for-profit, charter school, common core, voucher etc agenda, along with a new set of edu-speak terms for the participants.
Ian Kay
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The national CAEP standards, while currently voluntary, will be required of all teacher preparation institutions over time (http://www.ctc.ca.gov/educator-prep/accred-files/guide-caep-accred.pdf) . The standards are rigorous, a 3.0 GPA requirement for entry into a teacher prep program, and “evidence of teacher impact,” namely, developing tool to assess teacher effectiveness compared with peers and teacher prep institutions. There is no reason for fed involvement, CAEP standards should drive teacher prep programs, not bureaucrats in DC.
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Is this a plug for CAEP standards? Because it sounds every bit as dreadful as VAM, etc. There simply is no way to “measure” teacher effectiveness, and every effort to try further degrades anything that can meaningfully be called “education”.
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The standards written by the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation were not entirely voluntary. They were written to please Arne Duncan and his USDE staff. Why?
USDE had, and still has, the power to withhold scholarship money for prospective teachers unless CAPE standards complied with USDE’s agenda. USDE functions as the only approver of the teacher accreditation standards.
CAPE standards are clearly filled with USDE reformist language and they are designed to restrict the academic freedom of faculty in preparing teachers. .
Teacher education programs will be rated on how successful their graduates are in raising test scores, including growth measures (VAM, SLOs), placements of graduates in “high needs” schools, and more.
CAPE agreed to meet these and other USDE conditions for teacher education, but added its own jargon-filled standards. For starters, teachers are called “completers.” Teacher education programs are “providers.”
Here are few of the CAPE standards.
“1.2 Providers ensure that completers use research and evidence to develop an understanding of the teaching profession and use both to measure their P-12 students’ progress and their own professional practice.” This is a farce. USDE has systematically ignored research and evidence, even from their own studies.
“1.4 Providers ensure that completers demonstrate skills and commitment that afford all P-12 students access to rigorous college-and career-ready standards (e.g., Next Generation Science Standards, National Career Readiness Certificate, Common Core State Standards).” So, there is not any immediate death to the quest for fully standardized education.
“1.5 Providers ensure that completers model and apply technology standards as they design, implement and assess learning experiences to engage students and improve learning; and enrich professional practice.”
CAEP Standard 4.1, detail, p.13. “The provider documents, using multiple measures, that program completers contribute to an expected level of student-learning growth. Multiple measures shall include all available growth measures (including value-added measures, student-growth percentiles, and student learning and development objectives) required by the state for its teachers and available to educator preparation providers, other state-supported P-12 impact measures, and any other measures employed by the provider.”
This is an outrageous sacrifice of professional integrity. It enables VAM and SLOs to live on as if these are credible measures. They are not.
“Impact” is jargon of the day. “Measures of completer impact including available outcome data on P-12 student growth, are summarized, externally benchmarked, analyzed, shared widely, and acted upon in decision-making related to programs, resource allocation, and future direction.”(p. 27).
Reports for the accreditation process must include:
1. Impact on P-12 learning and development (data provided for component 4.1).
2. Indicators of teaching effectiveness (data provided for component 4.2).
3. Results of employer surveys, including retention and employment milestones (data provided for component 4.3).
4. Results of completer surveys (data provided for component 4.4).
Add: Ability of completers to meet licensing (certification) and any additional state requirements (e.g., through acceptable scores and pass rates on state licensure exams)
Ability of completers to be hired in education positions for which they were prepared.
Student loan default rates and other consumer information “Consumer” means applicant or employer.
CAPE, like USDE, relies on “accountability” as a cover for propagating invalid, unreliable measures of teachers and teacher education programs. CAPE has pandered to USDE. Cape is enabling USDE to completely standardize and control public education, not just cradle to career for this generation of students, but also teacher education.
CAPE standards should be the subject of an opt-out movement, some street theater protests, some picketing of USDE, and by any other means exposed as unsound, unethical, and a real threat to the vitality of American education.
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“. . . use both to measure their P-12 students’ progress and their own professional practice. . .
and
The provider documents, using multiple measures, that program completers contribute to an expected level of student-learning growth. Multiple measures shall include all available growth measures (including value-added measures, student-growth percentiles, and student learning and development objectives) required by the state for its teachers and available to educator preparation providers. . .
and
Measures of completer impact including available outcome data on P-12 student growth, are summarized, externally benchmarked, analyzed, shared widely, and”
First off “completer(s)”?!?!?!? ay ay ay
“Measure” this and “measure” that, tells us all we need to know about the total invalidity of this nonsense.
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What impact can future generations of teachers have, in an environment of concentrated wealth, created by oligarchs, Walton, Koch and Gates (funded by Buffett)?
Why doesn’t GAO set standards for Wall Street GDP increases, commensurate with the American resources diverted to them? Why doesn’t GAO set ethical standards for Silicon Valley executives, relative to employment diversity, monopolistic practices, etc. ? When corporations legally rob us of tax dollars, the GAO should have jurisdiction over how the money is spent. Why are there no GAO standards for politicians? Elected and appointed officials, who are legally bribed, give our tax money to multinational corporations. GAO jurisdiction is imperative. Clearly the current agencies and judicial system aren’t working to protect tax payers.
It’s time for a GAO policy change. No reviews or recommendations that impact government employees making below a certain salary. They need to focus on the problems at the top, in government and industry, where the nation is hemorrhaging its scarce resources.
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Did the legislation enabling and creating ED suddenly change? I thought Congress inserted a few rules smacking Arne and crew down. Hint, hint GAO. But why do we require federal oversight of teacher prep programs. Oh wait…it’s a potential profit center. Doesn’t seem to matter what party is in office anymore. They’re all…
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I’ve watched enrollment in my class drop from 35 in 2005 to 15 just a decade later. Of the 15, no more than 5 will be strong education students. This not only impacts the number of quality teacher candidates, but also the pool of future school administrators.
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My cousin is an academic college advisor, and she says the very same thing. The enrollment is not there. The deformers are so worried about keeping young people out of teaching. It is all silly. The young people want no part of this pitiful profession. Good decision for them . . . No one wants to be poor and abused.
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No worries! TFA will save the day! And when they can’t cut it or are bored after a year or two, they can be admins!
And TFA has expanded to Canada, too:
https://www.osstf.on.ca/~/media/Provincial/Documents/Publications/Education%20Forum/spring-2015-vol-41-issue-2/Solution%20equals%20problem.ashx
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“. . . the pool of future school administrators”.
No need to worry about that, you can always hire businessmen, military commissioned officers who have retired and those teachers who can’t hack being in a classroom and want a larger paycheck.
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“Incentives have unintended consequences.”
A little understood, ignored by most aphorism that should be heeded by all!
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I agree with what you say about the private colleges. In one area of California, Four-D College just shut its doors without informing the students who pay 30,000 a year or more in tuition. They simply locked the doors.
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