The National Council on Teacher Quality has just issued a report that ranks colleges on teacher preparation. The four standards rated were selection criteria, subject are preparation, practice teaching, and institutional outcomes. Data was collected from 1,140 institutions. (Here’s a link to the methodology.) Each state has its own profile.
There are 13 teacher preparation programs rated in New Jersey. (Data was collected from 21, but NCTQ was unable to collect sufficient data on 8.) The highest rated programs were at Kean University, Rutgers University-Camden, and Seton Hall. The lowest rated were Richard Stockton College, Montclair, and Fairleigh-Dickinson.
Here’s NCTQ’s “big takeaways about teacher preparation in New Jersey”:
• Selectivity in admissions — The Review found that only 17 percent of elementary and secondary programs in New Jersey restrict admissions to the top half of the college-going population, compared to 28 percent nationwide. Countries where students consistently outperform the U.S. typically set an even higher bar, with teacher prep programs recruiting candidates from the top third of the college-going population.
• Early reading instruction — Just 9 percent of evaluated elementary programs in New Jersey are preparing teacher candidates in effective, scientifically based reading instruction, an even lower percentage than the small minority of programs (29 percent) providing such training nationally.
• Elementary math — A mere 19 percent of evaluated elementary programs nationwide provide strong preparation to teach elementary mathematics, training that mirrors the practices of higher performing nations such as Singapore and South Korea. 19 percent of the evaluated elementary programs in New Jersey provide such training.
• Student teaching — Of the evaluated elementary and secondary programs in New Jersey, 60 percent entirely fail to ensure a high quality student teaching experience, in which candidates are assigned only to highly skilled teachers and receive frequent concrete feedback, while 27 percent earn a perfect four stars. 71 percent of programs across the country failed this standard, and just 7 percent earned a perfect four stars.
• Classroom management — Only 20 percent of the evaluated New Jersey elementary and secondary programs earn a perfect four stars for providing feedback to teacher candidates on concrete classroom management strategies to improve classroom behavior, compared to 23 percent of evaluated programs nationwide.
• Content preparation — Just 4 percent of New Jersey’s elementary programs earn three or four stars for providing teacher candidates adequate content preparation, compared to 11 percent of elementary programs nationwide. The results are better at the high school level, with 42 percent of New Jersey secondary programs earning four stars for content preparation, compared to 35 percent nationwide.
• Outcome data — None of New Jersey’s evaluated programs earn four stars for collecting data on their graduates, compared to 26 percent of evaluated programs in the national sample. The state does not connect student achievement data to teacher preparation programs, administer surveys of graduates and employers or require administration of teacher performance assessments (TPAs), and programs have not taken the initiative to collect any such data on their own.
For counterpoint, see Bruce Baker’s post, “The Glaring Hypocrisy of NCTQ’s Teacher Prep Institution Ratings.”
