Georgia earns a C for how well it selects and prepares its teaching force. Colleges are not selective enough.
The National Council on Teacher Quality gave Georgia an overall grade of C in its teacher preparation policies, docking the state points for the lack of selectivity in admissions to teacher prep programs and for ridding classrooms of under performing teachers.
Still, Georgia outperforms the rest of the nation. The average grade nationwide was a D plus.
Here is a link to the full 2012 Georgia report.
The report recommends:
Georgia should require programs to use an assessment that demonstrates that candidates are academically competitive with all peers, regardless of their intended profession. Requiring a common test normed to the general college population would allow for the selection of applicants in the top half of their class while also facilitating program comparison.
Requiring only a 2.5 GPA sets a very low bar for the academic performance of the state’s prospective teachers. Georgia should consider using a higher GPA requirement for program admission in combination with a test of academic proficiency. A sliding scale of GPA and test scores would allow flexibility for candidates in demonstrating academic ability.
In addition to ensuring that programs require a measure of academic performance for admission, Georgia might also want to consider requiring content testing prior to program admission as opposed to at the point of program completion. Program candidates are likely to have completed coursework that covers related test content in the prerequisite classes required for program admission. Thus, it would be sensible to have candidates take content tests while this knowledge is fresh rather than wait two years to fulfill the requirement, and candidates lacking sufficient expertise would be able to remedy deficits prior to entering formal preparation
In addressing the readiness of states to teach the new Common Core Standards, the report warns: Unfortunately, Georgia’s policies fail to ensure that elementary teacher candidates will have the subject-area knowledge necessary to teach to these standards.
The council also noted that 86 percent of undergraduate teacher preparation programs in Georgia are not selective enough because they don’t require that candidates come from the top half of the college-going population.
Here is the official statement from the council:
The National Council on Teacher Quality today released its sixth annual State Teacher Policy Yearbook, with a special focus on the state laws, rules and regulations that shape teacher preparation. This 2012 edition of the Yearbook provides Georgia with a tailored analysis, Improving Teacher Preparation in Georgia, which identifies the teacher preparation policy areas most in need of critical attention, as well as “low-hanging fruit,” policies that can be addressed by Georgia in relatively short order.
The state received a grade of “C” for its teacher preparation policies in 2012, with no improvement since 2011. The average grade across all 50 states and the District of Columbia is a “D+”.
NCTQ President Kate Walsh said, “With so much attention on the issue of teacher effectiveness, the relative lack of attention to how candidates for teaching are prepared for the job in the first place is puzzling. The Yearbook provides a road map for policymakers on how to get teacher effectiveness right from the start – by setting higher expectations for what teachers need to know and are able to do before they are licensed to become teachers. Our teachers deserve the very best preparation so that they can step into the classroom and help our students prepare to be the most successful in the world.”
Some of Georgia’s teacher preparation policies most in need of critical attention include:
•Raising admission requirements to ensure that teacher preparation programs admit candidates with strong academic records.
•Ensuring that elementary teachers know their subject matter and have the knowledge and skills to be effective reading teachers so that new teachers are ready to teach to the Common Core State Standards.
•Closing loopholes that allow some secondary science teachers to teach subjects in which they may lack sufficient content knowledge.
•Eliminating generic K-12 special education licenses that lower the bar for special education teachers and make it virtually impossible for the state to ensure that these teachers know their subject matter and are prepared to teach grade-level content.
•Requiring that teacher candidates receive a high-quality summative student teaching experience and are assigned to cooperating teachers who have demonstrated evidence of effectiveness as measured by student learning.
•Establishing minimum performance standards for teacher preparation programs. Although Georgia is one of only eight states that requires the use of student achievement data, minimum standards are necessary to hold programs accountable for the performance of their graduates.
The report also identifies ways that the Georgia Teacher Academy for Preparation and Pedagogy, the state’s alternate route into the teaching profession, could be improved.
This year’s Yearbook comes in advance of NCTQ’s forthcoming (Spring 2013) Teacher Prep Review of the higher education-based teacher preparation programs in the nation. A key area of focus in both reports is admission standards, and the 2012 Yearbook includes a sneak peek of data from the Review, which finds that 86 percent of undergraduate teacher preparation programs in Georgia are insufficiently selective, failing to ensure that candidates come from the top half of the college-going population.
Walsh continued: “The 2012 Yearbook will serve as an important companion to NCTQ’s forthcoming Teacher Prep Review, which will identify programs that are doing the best job of preparing tomorrow’s educators, those that need to improve and those that need restructuring. The Yearbook’s recommendations can help state policymakers build a strong policy framework for effective teacher preparation so that our teachers get what they deserve: training that provides them with the tools they need to lead a classroom the day they graduate.”
–from Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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114 comments Add your comment
Home-tutoring parent
January 23rd, 2013
5:24 pm
Progressive Humanist,
You say the past is irrelevant. I’m not conceding to your argument. Past is prologue to future. It makes a great difference to today’s children’s lives whether their teachers earned A/A- GPAs at UGA/GT, versus B+/B/B- GPAs at Augusta State. I didn’t set the 2.5 GPA minimum. Your complaint should be registered with people who did. If you earned a 2.5-3.3 GPA at Augusta, or UGA or GT, you graduated seriously confused.
Progressive Humanist
January 23rd, 2013
5:25 pm
You’re not going to find many Harvard educated elementary school teachers, or secondary teachers for that matter. It’s nice if you can afford to fly your child to Chicago or Cambridge for the summer for supplemental instruction, but the vast majority of parents can’t, and it’s not germane to the conversation.
It’s a shallow argument to suggest that because someone had a 3.9 GPA at Georgia Tech they would make a better k-12 teacher than someone who went to a regional school and had a lower GPA. There’s little evidence to suggest that people with degrees from elite schools or who have the mythical “real world experience” actually do more things in the classroom that increase learning than do education majors from run of the mill state universities. Anecdotes won’t do.
Beverly Fraud
January 23rd, 2013
5:29 pm
“A sounder teacher selection process might likewise thin the ranks of malcontents.”
Like those “malcontents” that tried to testify about systemic cheating in DeKalb County, only to have State Sen. Ronald Ramsey illegally shut down a grievance hearing?
Like those “malcontents” who testified about cheating during the governors investigation, only to have their contracts suddenly non-renewed?
Yep, it’s not like those malcontents ever have anything of value to say, because we all know that public school systems hold themselves to the highest ethical standards don’t we?
Why would we ever want malcontents to speak out, when we know there is nothing inherently wrong with education.
Pompano
January 23rd, 2013
5:35 pm
“I would bet the teachers have the lowest percentage of poor workers than any industry.”
And comments like these by Teacher Experienced demonstrate the hubris of the Public School System Employees. They churn out a failing product year-after-year but somehow think that they are the best-of-the-best – yet fight tooth-and-nail against any efforts at reasonable evaluations or the threat of competition.
The standard mantra of the Public School System crowd: “We’re doing a great job – just take our word for it (and give us more money)”
Progressive Humanist
January 23rd, 2013
5:36 pm
Home-tutoring,
The bar is 3.0 where I teach, as I mentioned earlier.
Do you have any empirical evidence for your claim that Georgia Tech graduates (or those from similar institutions) are superior k-12 teachers to those from lesser state colleges?
So everyone who graduated from any institution with a GPA of 3.3 was “seriously confused”? I know a few graduates from UGA and GT who would beg to differ. You sure do make some gross generalizations, and gross generalizations are where gross inaccuracies often lie.
Ole Guy
January 23rd, 2013
5:39 pm
Selection? Is there a selection process? Did the entire system receive a major overhaul since my departure? Anyone who breaths, stands, and…oh yea, has the tuition, can become a teacher. Lets bring back a little professional pride to the corps…something which has been conspicuously absent for a long long time.
Starik
January 23rd, 2013
5:47 pm
Please. Where is this terrific education school? Miskatonic? Faber?
Beverly Fraud
January 23rd, 2013
5:50 pm
“You sure do make some gross generalizations, and gross generalizations are where gross inaccuracies often lie.”
Home tutor, at the risk of making my own gross generalization, I’d say, based on your comment, that with really high GPAs from good universities are exponentially more likely to make gross generalizations than students with low GPAs from lower tier schools.
If I were going to make a gross generalization; I will say however I’m not the least bit confused having graduated 6th grade from the Jethro Bodine School of Grammer and Brain Surjery.
With honors no less.
Beverly Fraud
January 23rd, 2013
5:57 pm
“yet fight tooth-and-nail against any efforts at reasonable evaluations or the threat of competition.”
There is some legitimacy to that point of view Pompano, but please explain, how a system that would allow a teacher to be downgraded for quietly approaching a distracted 8 year old, and reminding him to get back to work is “reasonable”?
Yes, Pompano, you read that right: A teacher can quietly remind an 8 year old to get back on task, the student can cheerfully get back on task, and the teacher can be downgraded with this new evaluation instrument!
And you want to know why teachers are leery of this “reasonable” evaluation?
Home-tutoring parent
January 23rd, 2013
5:57 pm
Progressive Humanist,
Statistics apply to masses. Anecdotes apply to individual humans. In every teaching situation, you are dealing with individual humans.
I have a black DIL. She made croissants for the first time in her life. Not that good.
On second round, I told her to try more dough-rising time. I warmed up a warming drawer for her, but she instead put the croissants in front of the fireplace. She half-listened to me, half got rebellious. Her second-round croissants were “to die for” fluffy. Second time. That’s learning.
Real learning isn’t statistically measurable, it’s off the charts.
Beverly Fraud
January 23rd, 2013
6:08 pm
“Statistics apply to masses. Anecdotes apply to individual humans. In every teaching situation, you are dealing with individual humans.”
@Home, I think that’s the point is progressive humanists is trying to make. Yes, if you looked at 1000 teachers who taught in similar situations, the 500 with a 2.0 from Podunk U probably aren’t as effective as the 500 with a 3.5 from an Ivy League school.
On the other hand Kathy Augustine was Harvard credentialed and thought the public would buy “We see no need to investigate; we expect outliers every year.”
Funny how all these high flying graduates in the “bidness” community saw this as a perfectly plausible explanation, but the graduates from the Jethro Bodine School of Grammer and Brain Surjery saw right through it. (Of course when you get a dual degree, 6th grade no less, in grammer and brain sujery, you’re going to get a rigorous dose of rigor)
Of course to be fair to Augustine, maybe she meant out and out liars every year.
Progressive Humanist
January 23rd, 2013
6:10 pm
Wow. You certainly have a wealth of misconceptions. Your Ivy League 4.0 and Phi Beta Kappa membership certainly didn’t inhibit that.
Home-tutoring parent
January 23rd, 2013
6:22 pm
PH
I suspect that you never earned a 3.9. I started college at 2.7 and worked my way up.
earning all As is a very different experience than getting Bs and Cs. Studying all semester, rather than cramming, is different. Arriving at finals, nervous, but feeling confident, is different from arriving to finals unprepared, and struggling to get through them, “I know this one, I don’t know that one..”
You never got to the straight-A level. Your schools’ fault or yours?
Progressive Humanist
January 23rd, 2013
6:29 pm
So you think someone with a PhD from a RU/VH school didn’t get many straight A’s? Another interesting hypothesis you have there. They just keep coming.
mark
January 23rd, 2013
6:39 pm
Those Straight A students from GA tech are lining up at the door to teach? Are we serious? Those are harvard grads. Can’t you tell from the way they tie those sweaters around their necks. You think some one is going to spend 100K for an education and get bullied on web sites and in the news. Told off by parents and students. You people are nuts. Race to Retirement or is it, get the ____ out of Georgia!! see ya.
Home-tutoring parent
January 23rd, 2013
7:00 pm
PH,
I understand you. You entered college very smart, but lazy. I was there too, Hon. But I switched to working hard. You didn’t. That’s why you are saying that people who got 3.0 GPAs are qualified to teach other people’s children.
Riiiight. And you’ve been at the forefront of pushing for 240-day school years, right? Because research shows that kids can learn in June, July and August, as effectively as they can in October, January and March, right?
SBinF
January 23rd, 2013
7:00 pm
Undergrad GPA isn’t necessarily an indicator of knowledge or retention.
I finished undergrad with LESS than a 2.5. I barely even graduated, was far more interested in partying. Fast-forward a few years, I grew up, worked a couple of jobs. I pleaded with a graduate program to give me a chance (my GRE scores were in the 90th percentile). They allowed me in on a probationary period. I made a 4.0 my first semester Now I’m preparing to finish my M.S. with above a 3.5. I think the ills of our education system are far too complex to reduce down to one variable (in this case, college GPA).
KIM
January 23rd, 2013
7:06 pm
Thank you, Maureen, for the time you are taking to be well informed on these eval. instruments.
Progressive Humanist
January 23rd, 2013
7:14 pm
HTP- Huh… So earning a PhD in psychology at an RU/VH while teaching full time at a high school doesn’t require hard work? Interesting thought process you have going there. I’m sure you are convinced that you worked very hard to acquire the education to spout off-topic anecdotes and vapid generalizations. I congratulate you.
Pride and Joy
January 23rd, 2013
7:23 pm
There is so much truth in this article. My child’s teacher cannot speak common, everyday English correctly. She never uses past tense and her grammar is atrocious. “The principal have inform me…” “Do your child need a pencil?” Every single sentence, both written and spoken, is wrong and feels like nails on a chalkboard. The worst problem is my child still speaks as she does. My child sat in her classroom six hours a day and listened to her speak and she/he still has bad English habits she/her LEARNED from his/her TEACHER.
How do teachers like this one ever graduate from high school?
Georgia Coach
January 23rd, 2013
7:27 pm
There is no correlation between GPA and teaching ability.
AP Teacher
January 23rd, 2013
7:44 pm
Want to increase selectivity?
eliminate: IBoughtmydegreeonline.com universities.
Addressing the inequality of universities: there are professors everywhere who dont care about you and are only interested in research. Start there then force universities to become selective. Also, professors need to learn how to deliver material.
UGA history courses were awful IMHO (just like high school. Professor didnt care as well as the kids.) No disrespect intended towards the UGA people here. I know world civ isnt that interesting to some, but the lack of professionalism on both sides of the desk were evident.
My history classes at my small “stupid little regional university” according to some elitists here were professional, refreshing, and the professors went out of their way to make sure I knew my content.
That “stupid regional university” was GCSU.
William Casey
January 23rd, 2013
7:57 pm
@Georgia Coach: While I agree with your sentiment that GPA isn’t everything, your statement is absolutely wrong. There is a correlation. It’s just not as strong as one might think.
@Mark: “Those Straight A students from GA tech are lining up at the door to teach? Are we serious? Those are harvard grads. Can’t you tell from the way they tie those sweaters around their necks. You think some one is going to spend 100K for an education and get bullied on web sites and in the news. Told off by parents and students. You people are nuts.”
Thanks for saying what I was thinking. Raise standards in School of Education programs all you want. WHAT is going to draw top notch minds into these programs?
Google "NEA" and "union"
January 23rd, 2013
7:58 pm
For a job that entails only 9 months of work per year, while providing 12 months of taxpayer-subsidized healthcare and retirement benefits … K-12 teaching seems to generate more than its share of bellyaching.
And oddly enough, there’s an oversupply of qualified applicants available. What’s missing appears to be the virtues of free markets!
M.G.
January 23rd, 2013
7:58 pm
I have been an elementary school teacher for twelve years and I have been teaching in Georgia for seven. I graduated from honors from my university in NY State. I am so sick of reading about the poor quality of teachers here in Georgia and every other state. I work to the point of exhaustion every single day I am teaching. I take work home with me in the evenings, I do work on the weekends, and I spend much of the “planning time” I have at school discussing how to raise student achievement.I have not gotten a raise in over 5 years, but I spend my own money to enrich my classroom, and I continue to complete to more and more paperwork, attend more meetings, and spend more time working to make sure that all my students are successful. All of my colleagues do. If you really want to get to the bottom of why students in the US are being outperformed by many other countries you would look at the elephant in the room…THE PARENTS. What about holding parents accountable for how their children perform in school? The majority of the students I work with that perform well in school can thank the people that the go home to. The parents that check their bookbags, ask them how their day was, help them with their homework, and read to them at night. The ones that care about how they behave in school, answer their phone when the teacher calls, and write a letter back to the teacher when there is a concern. They come to the parent teacher conferences, and they ask the teacher how they can help their child at home. They make no excuses. The students that often perform the lowest are the ones that go home to people that are too busy or too preoccupied with the rest of their lives to show their child that they care about their academic success and want them to be successful at school. There is a pattern. They miss the parent teacher conferences, they don’t answer their phones, they don’t respond to letters you write home, they don’t help their children with homework or read to them at night, and they don’t try to help their child when you tell them their child is failing your class..even when it is Kindergarten! Stop blaming teachers for the poor results in Georgia. we are tired of being scapegoats.
old teach
January 23rd, 2013
8:03 pm
Yes, one of the ideas proposed above is to raise teacher pay to attract the best candidates. But the model presently used by Georgia is the “Beatings will continue until morale improves” model.
Prof
January 23rd, 2013
8:13 pm
@ Progressive Humanist. Cheers and Bravo, as usual.
Prof
January 23rd, 2013
8:33 pm
And, Home Tutoring Parent, what exactly is the source of your superiority that allows you to judge Progressive Humanist, et. al., as you do, aside from the Ph.D. from UGA in English Literature that you mentioned a few blog-threads back? Are you now a tenure-track or tenured professor at one of the state research universities? Are you perhaps on the state BOE? In fact, have you ever taught at all, K-12 or otherwise? Home-schooling the captive audience of your son does not count.
Teacher-Bashing
January 23rd, 2013
8:41 pm
Another article blaming teachers and colleges for the sorry state of affairs in education. Schools are a reflection of our society which I am sorry to say is going down the toilet. There are and will always be weak teachers just like in any profession, and I am not saying that is right or fair. Also you can’t compare our schools to countries like Norway that don’t deal with the same social problems we have in this country. I could go on and on with more reasons this article is so slanted. Race to the Top or any other program is not going to be an over night fix. @ Maureen D., you have no clue to what goes on in the regular classroom. Until Parents and Students are made to be more responsible for their children’s education, No Program will improve our national education program or Georgia’s for that matter. All Race to the Top has done in Ga. is put more strain on teachers with more paperwork which does not prepare them to be better educators. In addition, any time the federal gov. gets involved, they just make the situation worse. I wouldn’t adivise anyone to become a teacher. I’m a teacher and have been assaulted 2 times by students. If the economy wasn’t so bad and didn’t have the years invested in teaching, I would quit in a minute.
Teacher-Bashing
January 23rd, 2013
8:41 pm
Another article blaming teachers and colleges for the sorry state of affairs in education. Schools are a reflection of our society which I am sorry to say is going down the toilet. There are and will always be weak teachers just like in any profession, and I am not saying that is right or fair. Also you can’t compare our schools to countries like Norway that don’t deal with the same social problems we have in this country. I could go on and on with more reasons this article is so slanted. Race to the Top or any other program is not going to be an over night fix. @ Maureen D., you have no clue to what goes on in the regular classroom. Until Parents and Students are made to be more responsible for their children’s education, No Program will improve our national education program or Georgia’s for that matter. All Race to the Top has done in Ga. is put more strain on teachers with more paperwork which does not prepare them to be better educators. In addition, any time the federal gov. gets involved, they just make the situation worse. I wouldn’t adivise anyone to become a teacher. I’m a teacher and have been assaulted 2 times by students. If the economy wasn’t so bad and didn’t have the years invested in teaching, I would quit in a minute.
Tech Prof
January 23rd, 2013
8:50 pm
Will the new model for higher education funding in Georgia result in more selective admissions — only accepting students who can finish the degree? Or, will the new model results in lowered admission standards hoping that more getting into programs will result in more graduates and, therefore, more $$ for the college/university?
Progressive Humanist
January 23rd, 2013
8:52 pm
Prof-
Thanks. I do enjoy bantering with the crazies.
I’ve never thought to ask my child’s elementary school teacher what her college GPA was. I’m just concerned with whether she’s a good teacher or not, and I’m not convinced that GPA is the most important indicator. I would be concerned if she had an online degree, but she went to the brick and mortar school where I currently teach so that’s fine with me as long as I see the right things in the classroom. (I’m not one to give a teacher grief unless there’s strong reason to think she’s doing something detrimental.)
Those of us who have studied the subject know that intelligent, resilient kids can thrive under the most inauspicious circumstances. Every year there are kids from poverty stricken environments who are accepted to Yale, Princeton, and Harvard. The idea that students won’t be successful unless they have a teacher from an Ivy League school with a 4.0 GPA is ludicrous, but I guess everyone who spent 12 years in a classroom is an expert in education these days.
State universities churn out good teachers every semester, and all universities can churn out some bad ones. I agree that standards for entrance into most CoE’s should be tightened, but there aren’t big bucks or a plethora of jobs in the field right now so I’m not sure how you then attract the cream of the crop. But, no, an elementary teacher does not need a degree from MIT to effectively teach addition and subtraction. They need to know all the basics, have some knowledge of best practices, know something about human development, and have the temperament and personal skills for the job. GPA and pedigree are much further down the list at that level.
Progressive Humanist
January 23rd, 2013
9:13 pm
Prof-
Thanks. I do enjoy bantering with the lunatic fringe.
Progressive Humanist
January 23rd, 2013
9:13 pm
I’ve never thought to ask my child’s elementary school teacher what her college GPA was. I’m simply concerned with whether she’s a quality teacher or not, and I’m not convinced that GPA is the most important indicator. I would be concerned if she had an online degree, but she went to the brick & mortar school where I currently teach, so that’s perfectly fine with me as long as I see the right things in the classroom. (I’m not one to give a teacher grief unless there’s strong reason to think she’s doing something detrimental.)
Progressive Humanist
January 23rd, 2013
9:14 pm
Those of us who have studied the subject know that intelligent, resilient kids can thrive under the most inauspicious circumstances. Every year there are students from poverty stricken environments who get accepted to Yale, Princeton, Harvard, etc. The idea that students can’t be successful unless they have a teacher from an Ivy League school who was a member of Phi Beta Kappa with a 4.0 GPA is ludicrous, but I guess everyone is an expert in education these days, especially those who have never done or seen empirical research in their lives.
Progressive Humanist
January 23rd, 2013
9:17 pm
Those of us who have studied the subject know that intelligent, resilient kids can thrive under the most inauspicious circumstances. Every year there are students from poverty stricken environments who get accepted to Yale, Princeton, Harvard, etc. The idea that students can’t be successful unless they have a teacher from an Ivy League school who was a member of Phi Beta Kappa with a 3.9 GPA is ridiculous, but I guess everyone is an expert in education these days, especially those who have never done or seen empirical research in their lives.
State universities churn out quality teachers every semester, and all universities can churn out some poor ones. I agree that standards for entrance into most CoE’s should be tightened, but there aren’t big bucks or a ton of jobs in the field right now so I’m not sure how you then attract the cream of the crop. But, no, an elementary teacher does not need a degree from MIT or Purdue to effectively teach addition and subtraction. They need to know all the basics, have some knowledge of best practices, know something about human development, and have the temperament and personal skills for the job. GPA and pedigree are further down the list at that level.
Progressive Humanist
January 23rd, 2013
9:19 pm
State universities churn out quality teachers every semester, and all universities can churn out some poor ones. I agree that standards for entrance into most CoE’s should be tightened, but there aren’t big bucks or a ton of jobs in the field right now so I’m not sure how you then attract the cream of the crop. But, no, an elementary teacher does not need a degree from MIT or Purdue to effectively teach addition and subtraction. They need to know all the basics, have some knowledge of best practices, know something about human development, and have the temperament and personal skills for the job. GPA and pedigree are further down the list at that level.
Progressive Humanist
January 23rd, 2013
9:21 pm
Those of us who have studied the subject know that intelligent, resilient kids can thrive under the direst circumstances. Every year there are students from poverty stricken environments who get accepted to Yale, Princeton, Harvard, etc. The idea that students can’t be successful unless they have a teacher from an Ivy League school who was a member of Phi Beta Kappa with a 3.9 GPA is ridiculous, but I guess everyone is an expert in education these days, especially those who have never done or seen empirical research in their lives.
KIM
January 23rd, 2013
10:15 pm
I have to agree with AP Teacher. You can’t swing a cat without its tail hitting an Ed. D or Ph. D. in education at this time. And I would love to see the stats on how many are from the online degree places. In educational round table discussions, those weakest participants are those Drs. who graduated from those institutions. The traditional school M. Eds. or M. As. or Ed. S. graduates put them to shame in each setting. Many can’t speak nor write nor contribute to scholarly study or work. It is so disheartening.. Time to start calling it what it is: the roll out of pieces of worthless paper.
AlreadySheared
January 23rd, 2013
10:44 pm
Echoing William Casey above…
All this talk of raising tandards for entering teachers is pushing on a string. I.e., in a profession where the 5 year attrition rate is 50%, the quality of entrants is not going to rise until working conditions and salaries do.
N. GA Teacher
January 23rd, 2013
10:44 pm
The debate here is over the WRONG QUESTION! It is not who the college admits to education programs in their sophomore or junior years or postgrad programs but WHO THEY ALLOW OUT!!!!! The best teachers are those with a good balance and variety of education and skills. Yes, teachers, especially at the high school level, need to be well-versed in subject matter. But not nearly as much as college profs. All teacher grads should be well-written and well-spoken (use proper English, correct pronunciation, correct grammar, have good presentation and poise, etc.). Grads should have many hours of interaction with a diversity of children ethnically and socioeconomically, for this is the reality of public schools. Grads should have a good work ethic, reserved temperaments, be good organizers, and be very cooperative with colleagues. Grads should also be savvy to school politics and other grim realities, so their idealism is tempered with realistic expectations. By the way, there is a ton of work and time put into obtaining an education degree, and a number of “pass points” unlike other college majors. First, education colleges must “accept” majors based on some criteria, like SAT scores, course grades, interviews, etc. History or English or biology don’t filter them after admittance to the university! Second, education majors must complete sophomore/junior observation hours and selected courses. Many choose to change majors after they see the gritty realities of public schools when they discover that not everyone is from Mayberry. Those who make it to the senior year must undergo a grueling student teaching experience and obtain passing evaluations from the mentor teacher, the university student teacher professor, as well as the profs whose courses they are taking concurrently. Again, many students suffer reality checks and drop out at this point. Finally, upon graduation, the students still are NOT really employable until they achieve state certification, usually accomplished by passing several tests over educational law, history, classroom management, teaching methods and yes, subject matter. By this point only the most tough and dedicated are left. Now, being a 30-year teacher who has worked with graduates of many colleges, I will admit that some programs produce clearly superior graduates, notably the large public universities. I would imagine that places like Duke and Vanderbilt also produce excellent grads, but I have yet to work with them. So yes, the Deans and Professors at some education colleges MUST try to improve the quality of graduates.
AlreadySheared
January 23rd, 2013
10:48 pm
And to whoever was throwing around GPAs above – I don’t know what’s going on now, but back in the day at Ga Tech they didn’t pass out A’s like candy. The average GPA for graduating seniors the year I got out was 2.6. Honors 3.0, high honors 3.2, highest honors 3.4. C’s were earned back then, they weren’t a default grade.
catlady
January 24th, 2013
7:00 am
Pluto: Those are not chunks of jello. LOL
As to the central question: It was not so 40 years ago. You had to have a certain GPA (back when not everyone was above average) and pass tests in spoken and written English.
Even as recently as 1990, FSU picked from the top applicants. GPA was usually above 3.2, and experience was expected (such as substitute teaching).
In order to get a graduate degree in 1973 in education, you had to have 5 or 7 years of experience in the classroom, as well as be fluent in a foreign language (administered by the language department)! Imagine how few of our current administrators would satisfy those requirements!
Mary Sue
January 24th, 2013
7:20 am
Teacher education classes need to be revamped to be more demanding. I received my bachelor’s degree in English and went back and did two years of post-bac to get certified to teach middle school. The education courses were a joke. I had a 4.0 for my two years of education courses with very little effort on my part. Require middle school and high school teachers to get a degree in the subject they wish to teach, and then they can minor in education to get the pedagogy classes and practical experience necessary to teach.
lyncoln
January 24th, 2013
7:23 am
Looking at the overall report I don’t think this ‘grade’ means much. The average state got a D+. No state got an A. States that are considered to have wonderful public schools have the same ‘problems’ as Georgia. Not selective enough for teaching programs, etc. Heck, according to the overall study Georgia is above average!
I give this report as much weight as I give some of the other ‘grades’ that have come out in the past few weeks — not much.
USG Professional
January 24th, 2013
7:27 am
If you think it’s bad now, just wait. Once college funding is tied to graduation and retention rates, your dog will be able to graduate from a public college in Georgia.
Wilbur
January 24th, 2013
7:31 am
Students I know in schools of nursing were vastly more prepared academically than education majors. I shudder to think what the education majors look like at second and third tier schools. Of course we produce great teachers and have every year for generations. it’s just not a system that seems designed to do so.
The certification test to become a nurse is the real deal. No whining from RN’s about being tested, being evaluated or expectations of performance.
SBinF
January 24th, 2013
8:18 am
“For a job that entails only 9 months of work per year, while providing 12 months of taxpayer-subsidized healthcare and retirement benefits … K-12 teaching seems to generate more than its share of bellyaching.”
Oh good God. You really should inform yourself before posting. Teachers are paid only for the time they work. The salary is spread across the entire year. There was a time when this wasn’t so, and teachers would be paid during the school year, not the summer.
If it’s such a cushy job, why aren’t you doing it? Certainly students could really benefit by learning from someone with your keen intellect.
Rob
January 24th, 2013
8:46 am
Oh look. More bureaucratic measures towards the standardization of education. I guess colleges will be told to go on the business model next.
I read recently that the state of Georgia is going to start funding colleges based on the number of students that graduate rather than success. Happy day.
NTLB
January 24th, 2013
8:48 am
@lyncoln, NYC selects its teachers after an extensive interview, and they have to teach a lesson to the selection committee;, Massachusetts has one of the toughest teaching state license exams to pass; I personally know of a teacher that moved to teach in Georgia because she couldn’t pass the teaching certification test for Texas..and she has a M.A.! ..I beg to differ that teacher qualifications are the same across the board.