Colleges Still Avoiding Evaluations

The teacher preparation report conducted by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), was not well-received by the academic community because it is telling them that their institutions are not preparing their students for teaching careers.

Tim Slekar, the Dean of the School of Education at Edgewood College in Wisconsinwrites on the Academe blog, “Sometimes we discover that administrators are not the enemies of the faculty but are companions in a single struggle.”  The Academe blog is maintained by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

Slekar alleged the NCTQ is “masquerading as a legitimate “national council” conducting research of national importance,” when he believed they are a “well financed group of anti-intellectuals with no experience in classrooms.” He went on to call the NCTQ a “propaganda machine on a mission to eliminate “professional” preparation of teachers.  They “want to remove teacher credentialing from higher education in order to privatize it and turn into a technical degree designed for low wage teaching jobs,”  he alleges.

One point that Slekar glossed over:  Colleges have a monopoly over credentials yet do not adjust to the labor market. With half of college graduates working in jobs that do not require a college degree, a college degree is becoming less valuable to the rising generation as under and unemployment are a new norm for young Americans. But, responses from college administrators like Slekar indicate that colleges want to protect themselves from criticism without improving their product.

 

Spencer Irvine is a staff writer at Accuracy in Academia.
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