Powerful Teacher Prep

Your article “Training Teachers for a Marathon” countering UCSB Teacher Education Program’s failing grade by National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), prompted a sense of dread as well as a need to reply.

If 60 percent of the children in this area are not reading at grade level by 3rd grade, our public schools are certainly not meeting the needs of our society to prepare young people to participate in a democracy dependent on an educated electorate. However, in my 30-year experience as a teacher educator here in Santa Barbara I can testify to the powerful preparation our local teacher education programs offer to teacher candidates.

The UC Santa Barbara programs for Multiple Subject and Single Subjects have been recognized locally, statewide, and nationally for their innovative and high quality preparation. One important difference between UCSB and other programs is the remarkable placement of teacher candidates with our community’s high performing teachers for the entire school year. This is historically one of the most important aspects of excellent preparation, giving the candidate an understanding of the teacher’s role from preparing their classrooms for students at the beginning of the year to how teachers close out the year.