The National Council on Teacher Quality has completed a study of our teacher training programs. There will be some quibbling, but the facts speak for themselves. Here's what their press kit has to say:
Executive Summary
For now, the evaluations provide clear and convincing evidence, based on a
four-star rating system, that a vast majority of teacher preparation programs
do not give aspiring teachers adequate return on their investment of time and
tuition dollars. These are among the most alarming findings:
In Less than 10 percent of rated programs earn three stars or more. Only four
programs, all secondary, earn four stars: Lipscomb and Vanderbilt, both in
Tennessee; Ohio State University; and Furman University in South Carolina.
Only one institution, Ohio State, earns more than three stars for both an
elementary (3½ stars) and a secondary (4 stars) program.
It is far too easy to get into a teacher preparation program. Just over a
quarter of programs restrict admissions to students in the top half of their
class, compared with the highest-performing countries, which limit entry to
the top third.
Fewer than one in nine elementary programs and just over one-third of high
school programs are preparing candidates in content at the level necessary
to teach the new Common Core State Standards now being implemented in
classrooms in 45 states and the District of Columbia.
The “reading wars” are far from over. Three out of four elementary teacher
preparation programs still are not teaching the methods of reading instruction
that could substantially lower the number of children who never become
proficient readers, from 30 percent to under 10 percent. Instead, the teacher
candidate is all too often told to develop his or her “own unique approach”
to teaching reading.
Just 7 percent of programs ensure that their student teachers will have
uniformly strong experiences, such as only allowing them to be placed in
classrooms taught by teachers who are themselves effective, not just willing
volunteers.