Today the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) released its annual ranking of teacher prep programs, with US News and World Report as the publisher. The list ranks 1,668 elementary and secondary teacher preparation programs across the country.

While the report indicates a growth in quality since the 2013 analysis, “far more needs to be done to expand the pool of teachers properly prepared to meet the challenges of the contemporary American classroom.” Although many schools improved their prep programs as a result of the 2013 review, the majority of teacher programs still need systematic reform.

The new report covers 40% more institutions than in 2013, replaces ratings with rankings – both regionally and nationally, and includes an analysis of alternative certification programs. Lastly, this report includes several adjustments made to standards including – selection criteria, classroom management and student teaching.

Each of these changes have enabled NCTQ to take a closer, more definitive examination of how teacher preparation programs are refining their effort to raise the quality of their work and of the teachers they produce.

Among the key findings:

• Of the 1,668 programs ranked, only 26 elementary programs and 81 secondary programs make NCTQ’s list of top ranked programs.
• Elementary programs continue to be far weaker than their secondary counterparts, with 1.7 times as many elementary programs as secondary programs found to be failing.
• The field also maintains a scattershot approach to mathematics preparation: 23 states cannot boast a single program that provides solid math preparation resembling the practices of high-performing nations.
• District superintendents tell us that elementary teachers simply don’t know the core subjects of the elementary curriculum.
• Three out of four programs fail even to insist that applicants be in the top half of the college-going population, a modest academic standard.
• The proportion of programs that have all of the basic components in place for a strong student teaching experience fell to 5 percent from 7 percent last year, with performance suffering after an adjustment was made to correct a potential loophole in the methodology of evaluations in the Review’s 2013 edition.
• The most promising sign of progress is in the training teacher candidates receive in how to manage classrooms — an area that new teachers perennially describe as their most difficult challenge.

Click here to read the full report.

Did you feel prepared to teach leaving college? Do you think teacher preparation programs are in need of reform?

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