A great time to close bad ed schools

One oft overlooked consequence of the current financial situation is that many newly minted teachers, straight out of the nation’s 1,200-odd ed schools, are finding it hard to get work. In comes former-Teachers College president (and ed-school critic) Art Levine with an interesting notion: If we need fewer teachers at present, we presumably need fewer programs through which to train them. Which is an opportunity, he explains, for states to shutter some of their lower-quality programs (more on this from NCTQ next year)—and allow those still in operation to be much more selective. But then he stumbles. Going further, he writes “It is also expensive to operate multiple systems for educating teachers, especially if the reason is that one system is not working well,” essentially calling for a clamp down on promising new models of teacher certification, like Teach For America—that themselves have very high standards and selectiveness. So read Levine’s article—but take his advice selectively.