Education reform groups are urging Indiana to put teeth into new accountability requirements for schools of education.
A new law gives the Department of Education until 2016 to craft a rating system for the nearly 50 Indiana institutions that train teachers, based on how well their graduates do over the next three years on licensure exams or in the classroom.
Indianapolis Public Schools board member Caitlin Hannon is executive director of TeachPlus, which assists novice teachers as they‘re starting out. She says I-P-S and other school districts should be able to look at where job applicants got their training as a factor in the hiring process.
Rae Shih with StudentsFirst Indiana says the state shouldn‘t stop there. She says schools which fall below a minimum percentage of graduates rated as effective teachers should be shut down if they don‘t improve by a specified deadline.
The Obama Administration has been working on similar federal regulations to prod states to strip accreditation from schools of education that are consistent poor performers.
