JACKSON — Mississippi’s teacher training programs are mediocre at best, according to a group pushing for changes in how the nation trains teachers.
The report from the National Council on Teacher Quality is backed by Mississippi groups pushing for educational improvements. However, leaders of some colleges of education said the council’s report either misconstrues information or is based on incorrect information.
William Carey University and the Mississippi University for Women generally did the best on the ratings, while the council issued a “consumer alert” over some programs at Delta State University, warning students to avoid them.
Delta State Education Dean Leslie Griffin told The Associated Press in a phone interview that the council appears to have looked at the wrong information regarding its secondary education program, issuing ratings based on its master of arts in teaching degree, an alternate certification for people entering education, instead of traditional undergraduate training for high school teachers.
Griffin said the council’s alert on Delta State’s special education program was unfair because it’s not a stand-alone degree, but a certification offered to elementary education majors. She said Delta State would offer more information to the council in hopes of getting the ratings revised.
Not all Mississippi colleges were rated. Programs at colleges that were rated generally got between one and two stars on a four-star scale.
The National Council is influential. Gov. Phil Bryant pushed its recommendations to raise entrance standards for teaching programs during the 2013 legislative session. Bryant wanted to force students to earn higher scores to enter teacher preparation programs, but universities resisted, warning they could lose accreditation if they couldn’t set their own admission standards. The governor accepted a compromise offered by universities to set required minimum test scores for teachers seeking a license. That could boost the National council’s ratings of some Mississippi colleges next year.
Bryant, lawmakers and universities also agreed to offer scholarships to high-achieving students who want to become teachers.
“Gov. Bryant knows there is a direct correlation between student outcomes and teacher quality and this report indicates a strong need to reform teacher prep programs across the state,” spokesman Mick Bullock said in a statement. “This legislative session began the process of addressing teacher quality with raising the standard requirements for entry, offering scholarships for high achieving students pursuing a teaching degree and merit pay for high performing teachers.”
Mississippi’s Department of Education oversees teacher training. In Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama and some other states, that accrediting function now includes a public rating of programs. Griffin said Mississippi’s evaluation system for teachers and principals, which the Department of Education is still testing, could be used for an evaluation system.
A spokeswoman for the state Department of Education referred questions to individual universities.
The council is controversial among many teacher preparation leaders, and some colleges did not cooperate in the survey. It is faulted for looking only at paperwork and not conducting interviews. Mississippi State University education Dean Richard Blackbourn said he favors traditional accreditation models.
“It is our belief that such measures are vastly superior to NCTQ’s ‘paper review’ of teacher education programs,” Blackbourn said in a written statement. “It is puzzling as to why such a limited methodology is being utilized when numerous viable outcomes measures are available.”
Mississippi First, which has pushed for state-paid preschool and other education changes in the state, endorses the report. Executive Director Rachel Canter said she was pleased to see that six of 10 rated Mississippi colleges passed the early reading standard, especially since lawmakers this year called for students to read at a basic level by the end of third grade or be flunked.
More than five years ago, Mississippi’s public universities agreed to overhaul and expand the way they teach reading. However, the council rated universities differently. For example, the report says MSU flunked the early reading standard, but got full credit for coursework on how to help struggling readers. MUW passed the early reading standard but flunked the struggling reader standard.
University of Mississippi education Dean David Rock said he was puzzled that his school flunked a struggling reader standard when it has a required course in reading intervention.
The report faults most Mississippi colleges on student teaching, lesson planning and classroom management. It also found that some weren’t giving future high school teachers enough coursework in the subject they will be teaching. At Ole miss, which graded well on high school teacher content, Rock said future math teachers must take 36 credit hours of math classes.
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