Opportunity or Threat? Your Choice!
Ouch!
AP: Washington: The nation’s teacher-training programs do not adequately prepare would-be educators for the classroom, even as they produce almost triple the number of graduates needed, according to a survey of more than 1,000 programs released Tuesday.
The National Council on Teacher Quality review is a scathing assessment of colleges’ education programs and their admission standards, training and value.
It would be easy to see this as an unmitigated opportunity for private, independent schools that set their own standards for teacher credentialing, but that would likely miss the other side of a double-edge sword. We have observed for a long time that negative developments in the public school sector (e.g., No Child Left Behind) usual cut both ways for independent schools.
Using this logic, we would expect parents to both seek us out when fleeing the public sector AND demand more evidence that our quality control in hiring really works. I have long thought that the school that can demonstrate, backed by evidence, that it has the best teachers in a market will essentially own the field. The schools that can't, or don't, risk being tarred by the same brush as their public cousins.