Embarcadero

p.s. I did a lot of research, including on-site visits, throughout the process, so it's not like I'm going into this without info. But this is a study that purports to be comprehensive, and consumer-oriented, and the media seems to be giving it a lot of credence. It also struck a chord with me because one of my concerns going in is that my primary goal is to develop the tools to become a good teacher, and I've been afraid that many programs seem to get bogged down in ideology at the expense of the nitty gritty tools. (I happen to share much of the equity/social justice ideology professed by many programs, but I'm not going to grad school to learn what I already believe.) I want to be as informed as possible, but this survey isn't giving me a whole lot of meat to chew on.

This is not just an academic exercise for me. I am making a mid-life career change to go into teaching, and have chosen the grad school, Teacher Ed route. Although I am committed to a program, the (rather large) check has not yet been written, and if I'm wasting my time, I'd like to know now. The problem is I'm hardly going to take a star rating at face value without more evidence and explanation, and I'm not finding much in the survey beyond the star rating on which to base my decision.

I guess the issue for me, as a consumer, is not whether Teacher Ed programs can be improved (of course they can) but whether this is an accurate reflection of the current state of particular programs one might choose to invest one's time/money in. The questions I have are: Are the criteria appropriate? Can an outside study get an adequate sense of each program in relation to the criteria from course titles and descriptions? There seems to be a lot of prose and 30,000 foot analysis, and not as much hard data. How did they apply the information they have to the criteria to determine whether those criteria were met? In what proportion in order to assign stars to each program? If they don't show their work, how is it possible to understand relative strengths and weaknesses of programs, and whether stars have been appropriately given?

Does anyone have any opinions on the methodology / validity / import of the new NCTQ study? http://media.npr.org/assets/news/2013/teacherprep.pdf I haven't yet had time to read it closely. It appears to be generating large amounts of both buzz and controversy.

FYI, the drop dead date to accept/decline admission is April 15.

Thank you, best of luck to you, and all those still waiting on various programs.

Acceptance call came today! So unbelievably happy. STEP Secondary Social Science.

Was really hoping to avoid a weekend of torture, but at least there don't seem to be a flood of acceptances yet (of which I am not a part).

Sigh. I almost wish I hadn't seen that. Crickets. Torture.

The wait for STEP decisions has officially driven me insane. Insane.