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Slightly more than half of teacher preparation programs use scientifically grounded methods to teach aspiring educators how to teach children to read, according to a new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality.
That’s both good news and bad news.
Three years ago, when NCTQ last surveyed teacher preparation programs, only a quarter of them were fully aligned with the science of reading. So the number of programs giving new teachers a strong foundation in best practices to teach reading has doubled.
But that still leaves hundreds of teacher prep programs that are not aligned with the science of reading, according to the report released Tuesday. Hundreds of other programs declined to participate in the review. Of those that did participate, about 1 in 5 programs earned an F rating, meaning they teach multiple outdated or disproven practices. Even generally strong programs often devote very little time to supporting English learners, struggling readers, and students with disabilities, the report found.
Many teacher prep programs continue to teach outdated methods even as states and school districts invest millions of dollars in retraining teachers already in the classroom.
“This is a form of educational malpractice against new teachers and the students they will serve,” NCTQ President Heather Peske said.
The findings suggest one possible reason that science of reading policies, now on the books in all but a handful of states, have not made as big an impact on reading scores as advocates had hoped.
The recently released Education Scorecard found that students are in a sort of “reading recession,” with test scores persistently down over the last decade. That analysis found that states where reading scores had improved, such as Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Indiana, had adopted science of reading policies. But it also found that many more states with similar policies in the books had not made equivalent progress.
Foreshadowing NCTQ’s findings, a survey released earlier this spring by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a center-right education think tank, and the RAND Corporation, a research organization, similarly found that many teachers, especially those in high-poverty schools, continued to use outdated methods, such as asking students to guess at words using context.
Teachers who relied on their pre-service training were more likely to use such methods than those who had received on-the-job training, the Fordham report found.
Peske said states are in a strong position to exert leverage on teacher preparation programs through program accreditation and the teacher licensure process, but many states aren’t using that authority.
“If states do not include teacher preparation programs as part of a comprehensive approach to improving teacher capacity and student outcomes, they are missing the boat on a huge impact point,” she said.
States should set high standards for their teacher preparation programs and also provide support to help programs improve, Peske said.
NCTQ reviewed more than 700 teacher preparation programs by looking at course catalogs, syllabi, textbooks and other class materials, and then scored them using a standardized rubric. Critics of NCTQ have long said this method paints an incomplete picture and fails to account for the full range of work that happens within teacher prep programs.
NCTQ said program administrators had an opportunity to review their rating and correct information before the report was published.
More than 460 programs declined to participate, including 72% of teacher preparation programs in Illinois, 57% of programs in New York, and 58% of programs in New Jersey — all states that have ostensibly made improving literacy a priority.
Paula White, the executive director of JerseyCAN, a statewide education advocacy group, said ensuring students can read is a matter of accountability that starts with evaluating teacher preparation programs and ensuring that teachers are ready once they enter the classroom.
“We are accountable to our students, and what that should look like is that our teacher candidates are ready for prime time on day one in the classroom, instead of ramping up with the first cohort of students that they teach,” White said.
Of the 13 teacher preparation programs in New Jersey that participated in NCTQ’s report, the picture is bleak. Only The College of New Jersey’s undergraduate program earned an A grade. Seven programs earned an F, three earned a D, and two earned a C.
NCTQ tried to use publicly available information to assess programs that didn’t participate in the review, and found they often used textbooks and other materials also found in poorly rated programs.
NCTQ highlighted the work done in Mississippi, Colorado, and Indiana to improve teacher preparation as models for other states.
Improving teacher training was a central part of the reforms that contributed to the so-called “Mississippi Miracle.” In this year’s NCTQ review, 9 out of 10 programs earned an A or B rating.
Colorado used its accreditation process to pressure programs to overhaul their approach to reading instruction starting in 2019. This year, all 17 of the state’s programs earned an A or B rating.
Indiana leaned on a $25 million initiative from the Lilly Foundation to help its teacher colleges overhaul their programs after the state passed a new literacy framework in 2023. (The Lilly Foundation is a funder of Chalkbeat. See our funders here and read our ethics policy here.) This year, 24 of 25 Indiana programs earned an A rating.
Chalkbeat reporter Jessie Gómez contributed reporting.
Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.
