By Steve Gunn
EAGnews.org
     
CLEVELAND – Too many Ohio colleges are making a lot of money from their teacher preparation programs, but aren’t doing a very good job of preparing teachers for the classroom, according to Sharon Broussard, a columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
    
As a result a special committee is preparing a list of recommendations that will help Ohio improve its 2012 grade of C- in the teacher preparation category.
    
That means many of the current teacher training programs “will finally be sent out to pasture,” and “we should all say good riddance,” according to Broussard.
    
Brossard claims there is a long list of problems keeping the state’s 13 public and 38 private colleges of education from producing quality teachers on a regular basis.
    
Too many of the programs have low admission standards because they are eager to accept tuition money from just about anyone, Brossard wrote. That’s in stark contrast with nations like Singapore or Finland, who only accept the top 10 percent of college students into teacher preparation programs.
     
Many teaching candidates leave the programs with “embarrassingly low scores” on exit exams before they graduate, Broussard noted. Ninety-six percent of them pass the exam, but apparently few pass with flying colors.
    
“One thing is for sure, passing scores for a teachers’ license have to be much higher if Ohio hopes to get the best and brightest new teachers into the classroom,” Brossard wrote.
    
The colleges also come up short when it comes to preparing prospective teachers “for the hard work of controlling, teaching and guiding a classroom of antsy students,” Brossard wrote.
    
The columnist quoted American Federation of Teachers President Rhonda Weingarten, who said that too many teaching colleges across the nation “hand teachers the keys and tell them to go into the classroom and do their own thing.”
     
State Sen. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, is heading an ad hoc group that will make recommendations on how to improve teacher preparation programs sometime next month, according to Broussard. The group also includes staffers from the Ohio Department of Education, the Ohio Federation of Teachers and the Ohio Board of Regents.
    
“Improving the program by toughening admission standards and exit examinations would help districts get the best teachers and stop students from wasting their money,” Broussard wrote.