Rebecca Sanford, right, a Tennessee Tech master’s student, works fractions in sixth-grade math class Wednesday with Lauryn Russell, lower left, and La’Jerreion Burnette at East Lake Academy.LOWEST PERFORMING
The report card points out nine programs for producing teachers with the lowest student achievement gains:Tennessee State UniversityTennessee Technological UniversityUniversity of Tennessee at MartinSouth CollegeTennessee Wesleyan CollegeMiddle Tennessee State UniversityMemphis Teacher ResidencyTrevecca Nazarene UniversityUnion UniversitySource: 2011 Report Card on the Effectiveness of Teacher Training Programs
Tennessee’s teacher preparation programs are turning out a wide variety of educators, from woefully unprepared to high achieving, according to a new state report.
The Tennessee Higher Education Commission released its Report Card on the Effectiveness of Teacher Training Programs this week and shows that, of the state’s 41 teacher-training programs, only three produce graduates that enter the classroom and are immediately more effective at teaching than veteran teachers who’ve had more than three years of experience.
And the report points to the state’s retention problem, which has many leaving the teaching field within the first three years.
The report card looks at traditional programs at the state’s public and private universities that graduate education majors, as well as alternative programs, which grant transitional teaching licenses to those from noneducation fields — such as a biology teacher with a science major.