Teachers' Colleges Upset by Plan to Grade Them

Ask any teacher in the country how they measure students’ understanding of the material they are taught, and all of them will tell you they have some sort of grading system. This rings true even if they don’t use a traditional grading method. No matter what symbols are used to communicate, students and parents are given some report of their level of comprehension of the things they are taught each day in school.
Now, some colleges that train teachers are upset, because they will be graded by the U.S. News & World Report. The report is planning to assign grades ranging from A to F to over 1,000 teaching colleges throughout the country. Several education school deans are upset about this new grading system for their programs, claiming that the rating system’s methodology used to grade the schools is flawed. There has also been a letter written from 35 prestigious education colleges and graduate schools stating that there is an implied coercion if schools don’t cooperate with the ratings. Schools were told originally that if they did not supply the requested documents, the information would be sought under open-records laws. If the information was not obtained through those means then the school would automatically receive an F rating.

The editor of U.S. News, Brian Kelly, believes that the large amount of push-back from education schools is evidence that the industry does not want to be examined. Currently, the teacher-education programs have not been scrutinized and this rating system will help with the national push towards improvements in teacher quality. Education schools have been under fire for allowing teachers to graduate with weak skills as well as emphasizing education theory over hands-on classroom training. School principals have been very dissatisfied with the quality of candidates they have spoken with and this rating system will help with recruiting good teachers.
Via The New York Times