UNC's Teacher Training Program Ranked 10th

The state Board of Education released a report Thursday morning on the ability of North Carolina's colleges and universities to train new teachers. The Institutions of Higher Education Performance Report graded public and private colleges and universities on the quality of their teacher education programs.

The report awarded exemplary ratings to teacher education programs at four North Carolina schools -- Greensboro College, UNC-Asheville, UNC-Greensboro and UNC-Pembroke.

UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Education received a score of 125 and was tied for 10th place in the state with Lenoir-Rhyne and Chowan colleges.

The report rated and awarded points to each of the state's 47 teacher education programs based on their compliance with state and national accreditation standards, the quality of graduates they produce, and their involvement with and service to the state's public schools.

Institutions receiving 135 points or more were awarded exemplary status and those receiving fewer than 105 were given a rating of "low-performing."

A significant portion of schools' ratings came from the results of surveys completed by graduates and employers of each institution but the return rate of the surveys was low.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Ward said the report was still valuable despite the low response. "We are of the opinion that this kind of performance report to the institution and the community will be a wake-up call," Ward said.

This report follows Wednesday's release of the "N.C. First in America 2010" report detailing the mixed progress of the state's public K-12 schools toward Gov. Jim Hunt's goal of making the state's public school system the best in the nation by 2010. The First in America Report gave the state a "B-" for quality of teachers and administrators.

Charles Coble, UNC-system vice president for university-school programs, said UNC-CH did well overall in the teacher-education rankings. "The really good news about Chapel Hill is that students and the employers ranked the (teacher education) program very highly," Coble said.

But he said UNC-CH got low marks for effective use of technology and support for beginning and lateral-entry teachers.

Madeleine Grumet, dean of the UNC-CH School of Education, said she wished the school had garnered a higher rating.

Grumet said the report's low rating for effective use of technology might be due to the low number of survey responses.

"The technology factor is weird because the technology rating came from a statement from employers and recent graduates," she said. "The results came from a survey that had a 29 percent return rate."

Grumet said she is proud of the School of Education and while the report had good intentions, it was subjective.

"I think people have tried to do a good and fair job but this is not an exact science," she said. "A lot of these ratings are due to evaluations based on paragraphs we have written about our program."

The State & National Editor can be reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.