Teachers’ colleges kicking and screaming over rankings

Teachers' colleges may offer instruction in grade-based evaluations--but the institutions are apparently none too fond of the grading system themselves.

Administrators from teachers' schools are resisting an evaluation system to be published in U.S. News & World Report that will grade them from A to F on 17 standards.

Two separate groups of education deans have written letters complaining that the grading system is flawed, and does not focus on how well graduates from the schools perform in real-world classrooms once they've launched their teaching careers.

The National Council of Teacher Quality, the group doing the grading, initially threatened to grade uncooperative schools with an F for failing to provide the data needed for an evaluation.The group has since withdrawn that threat, and posted all of its grading criteria(PDF, via EdWeek) online, which include how much time students enrolled in teachers' colleges spend training in classrooms.

Several deans told EdWeek they think any protest from them about the grading system will be interpreted as a fear of evaluation and accountability.

"I fear that if anyone protests or refuses to participate in the review, they are sending a message that they are not responsive to the public," David Chard of Southern Methodist University, who is advising the study, told EdWeek. Teachers' colleges deans at NYU and Rutgers expressed similar fears.

Teachers' colleges occupy one of the last corners of higher ed untouched by the U.S. News' ubiquitous rankings. Malcolm Gladwell wrote in the The New Yorker this week that the publication's college rankings are based on standards that don't have much to do with how effective a given university is in terms of classroom instruction. A recent study showed half of college students don't improve in writing and reasoning skills in the first two years at school, sparking calls for greater accountability and transparency from higher education institutions

The evaluations of teachers college use different criteria from the U.S. News general college survey. Still, the schools haven't been spared the general clamor for improved performance at all levels of American education. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in 2009 that teachers' colleges are doing a "mediocre" job of preparing teachers for the classroom.

(Third grade teacher: AP.)