(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
Elizabeth Green of Gotham Schools turns in a very important article on building rock star teachers in New York Times Magazine.
I am having the same reaction to this article that I had to roller bags: why did it take so long? After all, we only spend hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars a year on Colleges of Education, and, well, what exactly have they been doing for the last 50 years?
Next reaction, this article hints at what may be a growing trend for Teach for America to work with universities to revamp their Ed Schools. It’s not mentioned in the article, but this process is underway at Arizona State University and the article mentions others. Given that traditional certification shows no relation to student learning gains and many states are getting a large percentage of their new teachers through alternative routes, the handwriting is on the wall for Colleges of Education: improve or else.
