This from the State that we let determine textbook availability/selection for other states?

akprof,
Do you think they let teachers have a vote in what textbooks are used?

This is not surprising at all. As a professor in the sciences, ironically the worst (i.e. least prepared and least intellectually able) students that I encounter are inevitably education majors. If you don't "have the goods" there is a very slim chance you can teach others. To paraphrase "Those who can't...teach"

Sorry, but I just can't help myself on this one. "Those who can't ....teach" ..... At #3. Lontraman is a professor in the sciences. Professors teach. Therefore .... Oh, never mind.

I think #3s comment is insulting to all the very fine teachers who teach because they love teaching, not because they can't do anything else.

That said, Schools of Education may do ok at training elementary teachers, but middle and high school teachers need to have a background in their subject matter, not just in education in general, and I don't know how common that is. They also need to know how to teach their subjects. All the knowledge and passion in the world for a subject remains inside the head and heart of a teacher who doesn't know how to teach it to his students.

As for the results of this study, a lot of institutions are now boycotting the U.S. News & World Report surveys; why is this any different? These Texas schools have a reason for not participating in the research. If a report is based on flawed, or incomplete, methodology, then its conclusions are worthless.

We do not need a study to show how sad the educational system in Texas has become - if we can still call it an educational system. I disagree that Schools of Education are sufficient for training elementary teachers, at least in math. If all we needed to know to teach third grade math was third grade math we could just let the fourth graders teach it.

Sorry, but to teach elementary school, all that is needed is that the teacher be literate. Schools of Education throughout the country are entitlement programs that perpetuate mediocrity. Afterall, what do you have to offer if your field has no content? What do you teach? At what time to take class roll? How to set up a Powerpoint presentation about how to improve nothingness?

Here is a little fact from history - One of Senator Margaret Chase Smith's (R-Maine) full time jobs was to teach school. She only had a high school diploma. Granted that this was early in the 20th Century, but Senator Smith achieved much for the nation as a woman in the Senator and was the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for the presidency (1964) by a major political party. Teaching, regardless of credentials, entails passion, patience, and determination. Teachers should know their subject area - why do we have "wrap around editions"? Because teachers lack methodology AND subject knowledge. I teach college-level history. If you have passion AND can convey the facts of history in a relevant, understandable manner, it creates an impact.

I'm writing this from memory and not research, but isn't it true that Texas schools don't seek NCATE accreditation of their programs? Is it possible that the NCATE group is criticizing these programs because they didn't try to meet NCATE standards?
Some of us who are in the midst of an NCATE review are rather envious of not having to jump through the NCATE hoops.
And I actually think that our College of Education prepare pretty good teachers. Anyone who believes that knowing your subject matter automatically makes you a good teacher should look at the success rates of faculty in educating their undergraduate students.

The report in question is an assessment of teacher education programs. Yet, there is no explicit attention to the core concepts of assessment: validity and reliability. Further, there is no literature review establishing a basis for what comprises an appropriate and effective teacher education program and many key assertions in the report are unsupported by citations from the teacher education literature. The report was apparently not peer reviewed, being published by its authors and their sponsoring agency, not by a reputable journal. There is also evidence that those conducting this report subscribe to a contentious, narrow view of reading and how it should be taught (e.g., note the evaluation of core and supplemental texts in the appendices). Participation in the reported assessment was also limited for principled reasons as noted in the appendices, which include correspondence with the Texas Association of Colleges of Teacher Education. Readers of the report should consider these issues when drawing any conclusions based on the report.

David Reinking
Eugene T. Moore Professor of Education
Clemson University
Past-Editor, Reading Research Quarterly
Past-Editor,Journal of Literacy Research
President, Literacy Research Association
(formerly the National Reading Conference)

NCATE approved or not, most Colleges of Education are more concerned about giving everyone access to the profession than quality. Math and Science Education curricula are glaringly devoid of higher level content classes and substitute those with Math Ed and Methods classes.

The new pragmatism among the "content lite" leaders in most COEs is why make a math ed major take numerical analysis, or a chemistry ed major take physical chemistry? They'll never teach it in high school and it will only reduce the number of students that can get through our program. The result is classroom teachers that don't know their subject areas and as a consequence don't require much of their students.

Colleges of Education have placed pedagogy above content for too long and the result is a failing education system that exists only to perpetuate its own mediocrity.

#9: "Anyone who believes that knowing your subject matter automatically makes you a good teacher should look at the success rates of faculty in educating their undergraduate students."

So, run42km, what are they?

Before obtaining a Ph.D. in science, I was an elementary school teacher in ... Texas. The reason I opted for a Ph.D. in science and not education came from the very, very sad masters programs in education. I was smack in the middle of an area where there were 5 or 6 masters in education programs within a reasonable drive, and I looked at 4 of them, and attended classes in two of the most elite before I decided I just couldn't sit through one more class.

At the school I'm at now, the education department is ... well also very, very sad.

As for the professor from Clemson, there are countless ways to evaluate a program that would not require an assessment to have validity ... (and if a measure is valid, there is no reason to assess the reliablity), but then again, if psychometrics was properly taught in doctoral programs, professors of education would be properly assessing their programs and making changes, not needing an external reviewer to raise questions.

Sadly, just like in the 1980's when a report came out highlighting the problems in education, instead of educator thoroughly evaluating their programs and making changes, they'll look for reasons why they are just fine ... thus assuring the status quo.

Then again, this is why my children attend an independent school, to avoid the poorly trained faculty.

This article is a "spit out the coffee while laughing" moment. Oh where to begin. The chuckling began at sight of the title. First thought, "Why only Texas?" This is like sliding the lid off the rabbit hole and looking down into it. Best article quote: "requirements vary... with no apparent rationale." HA HA HAAAA

FYI: Regarding the Great NCATE, I know of at least one teacher training program that is all in bed with "NCATE" and In My Humble Opinion, a crappy program I have not seen anywhere. They main thing is using these weird "lite" textbooks. Nobody in the program cares. They are too naive and most just want through it and out. If any of the professors start teaching like,... well, .... professors....? You know, using real book and having people write papers, well then, it makes the rest of the house of cards, the other courses in the program, it shows them to be shalllow, shammy, and showy. God Help any real professor who gets pulled into one of these shallow teacher training programs. When they start doing real teaching, the other faux-professors with be sure and snuff them, get them gone by an means necessary. So what does NCATE do? Sounds like a nice idea, like No Child Left Behind for graduate schools. No way, are you really that dumb to believe in this sort of thing? It is used for political posturing and then it is used to absolutely use up everybody's time for the "NCATE REQUIREMENTS" like counting beans and carpet fibers- those kind of REQUIREMENTS. And the non-teachers who pose as department heads and deans and professors, they just love it because they have no force of life or knowledge to really teach and they are making a career of being fakes and will malign the real people in order to do it. If I see NCATE anywhere, I turn and RUN in the opposite direction. NCATE - 20 required meetings and a bunch of confused corrupt morons around a conference table, for hours.... and hours.... and hours....

Maybe NCATE is good? Who knows. One of the things they do is try and mandate that professors have a background in what they teach. But then that means a highly accomplished professor is to teach only what it says on their own transcript and is prohibitted from branching out to teach anything else. So like outside interloper and control to me. Sounds bad. NCATE is control, outside control and mandate. Suddenly, no colleague or coworker knows each other, the only thing they know is The Law of NCATE. No thanks.

Teacher training programs are nothing but cash cows ALMOST without exception. Why does anybody even listen to these folks?

Some things I noticed about students from the College of Ed. I'm in stats.

1. When working on their PhD, they would often hire one of us (grad students) to do their regression analysis. We would have been kicked out for having someone else do our dissertation work. It was normal and accepted with them.

2. I had an undergrad who was planning to be a high school math teacher but failed college algebra, twice. She finally passed with a D-. Didn't seem acceptable to me but she said it was normal for them.

3. I've had a million students from there who couldn't figure out what a standard deviation was. When I would tell them that they would need it if they planned on grading on a curve, they'd reply that they would simply go 90, 80, 70, etc...

4. I was amazed at how many of them worked full time and went to grad school. Even still, they finished a doctorate faster than us. I wondered what the heck they could have learned.

5. In the end, they might make pretty good teachers. They seemed to struggle as students and I bet that makes them empathize with struggling students more. Maybe.

Teacher training programs are cash cows? The one teacher training program I know of is sorry-broke. Nobody good can teach there because they pay so little. Most of the "professors" are retired teachers, so it is like a second "holiday" income. Kind of tough to compete with that if you are a serious education academic without a pre-existing retirement income stream.

Regarding "NCATE," NCATE might be worth something is they mandated real textbooks for teacher training programs but one gets the impression that the NCATE types are completely allergic to this reality, truly oblivious. One get the impression that an NCATE-r woud not know a real book if they saw one. It is just part of the authority blur. A McDonald's training manual or perhaps the assembly instructions for a Chinese-manufactured lamp would suffice as long as it had a convincing trendy title. That is the real and serious problem with teacher training programs, using books "lite" with lots of "activities" and "group work." Score: Reality 120. NCATE: minus 1,000. Looks like a 1200 point differential to me. Certainly a statistic can phrase this in a scientifically valid method... "The Conclusive New Report..."

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