Maryland Universities' Teacher Training Programs Get Mediocre Marks

By Ben Gross

A recent study by the National Council on Teacher Quality awarded mediocre ratings to the vast majority of universities offering teacher preparation programs, The Washington Post reported.

The study looked at admission standards, class syllabuses, textbooks and course requirements for schools offering elementary and secondary education degrees. NCTQ then rated and ranked more than 1,400 programs on a scale of zero to four stars. Less than 10 percent of the schools earned three or more stars, and only four programs (all secondary education programs) earned a perfect four-star rating.

Of schools that offer multiple programs (a combination of undergraduate elementary, graduate elementary, undergraduate secondary and/or graduate secondary) only 13 schools earned three or more stars. The University of Maryland, College Park earned a three-star rating for both their undergraduate elementary and undergraduate secondary programs.

Click here to read the report.

Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Joshua Starr expressed concern that the results could be interpreted as teacher-bashing, telling The Post: “I get concerned about the drumbeat of debasing anything related to teachers these days.”

Starr also suggested that there is great variance among teacher preparation programs, but that the true problem may lie in the lack of consensus across the country as to what students should be learning. MCPS spends $28,000 in a new teacher’s first three years for professional development, he said.

Click here to read the report from The Washington Post.

Aside from the University of Maryland, the only other Maryland school to earn three stars or more was Westminster’s McDaniel College, for its undergraduate elementary program.

Other ranked Maryland schools include:

·      Bowie State: graduate elementary—1.5 stars; graduate secondary—1 star.

·      Frostburg State: graduate elementary—1 star; graduate secondary—1.5 stars.

·      Johns Hopkins: graduate elementary—2 stars; graduate secondary—1.5 stars.

·      Morgan State: undergraduate elementary—1 star; undergraduate secondary—2.5 stars.

·      Mount St. Mary’s: undergraduate secondary—1.5 stars; graduate elementary—1 star.

·      Salisbury: Undergraduate elementary—2.5 stars.

·      Towson: Undergraduate elementary—1.5 stars.

·      Maryland, Baltimore County: Undergraduate elementary—2.5 stars.

·      Maryland, Eastern Shore: Graduate secondary—1.5 stars.

·      Maryland, University College: Graduate secondary—1 star.