For decades, Arthur Levine, the former president of Teachers College, Columbia University, has tried to imagine a new kind of institution for training teachers. He envisions a combination West Point and Bell Labs, where researchers could study alongside future educators, learning what works and what's effective in the classroom. That idea is now set to become a reality.
This week, Levine and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation announced a $30 million partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the goal of creating a better model for teacher training.
"Instead of focusing on courses and credits students need to take," says Levine, who's now head of the foundation, "we're going to focus on the skills and knowledge they need to have to enter the classroom."
Most education schools have such low admission standards and are of such poor quality, Levine says, it would be easier to replace them than repair them.
"They're old and dated," says Levine.
[For more of this story, written by Claudio Sanchez, go to http://www.npr.org/sections/ed...oint-meets-bell-labs]
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