http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_23505330/wakeup-call-teacher-training
The National Center on Teacher Quality sometimes gets accused of being an agenda-driven organization, and perhaps that by itself is not a bad thing. NCTQ's vision of quality teacher education - and the means they use to measure it - do not exactly align with those in many schools of education. In Colorado, some programs were made to look worse than they likely are because NCTQ either collected incomplete data or misreported the data they had. Another reason that NCTQ rubs academics the wrong was is tactical - instead of peer-reviewed journals, NCTQ relies on self-published reports accompanies by a massive PR campaign to get their rankings in the hands of journalists who are more than happy to pass it along to the public.
The National Center on Teacher Quality sometimes gets accused of being an agenda-driven organization, and perhaps that by itself is not a bad thing. NCTQ's vision of quality teacher education - and the means they use to measure it - do not exactly align with those in many schools of education. In Colorado, some programs were made to look worse than they likely are because NCTQ either collected incomplete data or misreported the data they had. Another reason that NCTQ rubs academics the wrong was is tactical - instead of peer-reviewed journals, NCTQ relies on self-published reports accompanies by a massive PR campaign to get their rankings in the hands of journalists who are more than happy to pass it along to the public.