Teacher Prep Review Charts Course to Improvement

For the second year, the National Council on Teacher Quality has reviewed 2400 teacher education programs across the country and found many lacking. Findings released last week reveal mixed results for Massachusetts.  The good news is that the Commonwealth is making progress by instituting some of the policies shown to make a difference in teacher prep.  NCTQ provides a checklist, links to the rationale for each policy, and links to greater details about the policy in our state.   Although there is much room for improvement, Massachusetts “stands out for setting high expectations for what elementary teachers need to know across the board and uses top-notch tests for reading instruction and elementary mathematics.

Since we know that an effective teacher is the most critical in-school factor in student achievement, recruiting and training excellent teachers is perhaps the most important step the state can take to improve student learning and make the teaching profession one that attracts our most talented individuals.  We need only look at the recent actionby the Boston Public Schools to transform their human capital practices for the evidence that proves why this is so important:

• Having a top-quartile teacher rather than a bottom-quartile teacher four years in a row may be enough to close the black-white test score gap (Gordon, Kane and Staiger, 2006)
• Students assigned to a good teacher over three years in a row will score 50 percentile points higher on tests than students assigned to weak teachers over the same period (Sanders, 1996)
• Having a high-quality teacher throughout elementary school can substantially offset or even eliminate the disadvantage of low socio-economic background (Rivkin, Hanushek and Kain, 2002)

MBAE’s New Opportunity to Lead emphasizes the importance of “World Class Teachers and Leaders” and makes it clear “top-performing countries are very effective at recruiting teachers from among the top graduates and at preparing and developing them for ongoing success in the classroom.”   We think it is imperative that we review our teacher prep programs and complete the work that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has begun.  The business community knows that talent is the key  to competitiveness and success.  And, it is true for education as well.