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Ouachita ranked in top 25 percent of undergraduate programs preparing high school teachers

Ouachita ranked in top 25 percent of undergraduate programs preparing high school teachers.November 20, 2017 - Sarah Davis

Ouachita Baptist University has been ranked in the top 25 percent in the National Council on Teacher Quality’s latest ratings for undergraduate programs that prepare high school teachers.

The nationwide study named Ouachita in the top one-fourth of the 717 programs ranked nationwide based on the program admission standards, subject-area preparation, requirements for courses on instructional methods, guidance on how to manage a classroom and the high quality of practice opportunities.

"What a pleasure it is to work every day with the high quality faculty and students in Ouachita's teacher education program,” said Dr. Jeff Root, dean of Ouachita’s Huckabee School of Education. “Ranking systems cannot appropriately measure everything a campus community has to offer, but it's definitely an honor for the teacher education program to be so highly rated and ranked by the NCTQ,”

“I have great confidence that our education majors will be outstanding teachers upon graduation,” he added. “It's a well-designed system led by experienced and capable faculty members in the education department and in each of the subject matter areas."

At Ouachita, students combine on-campus instruction with the valuable experience of observing teachers in the Arkadelphia school district before student teaching with one of many partner districts.

“At a time when fewer than half of the nation’s teacher prep programs successfully show future teachers both what to teach and how to teach it, it’s great to see programs like Ouachita proving that there is a better way,” said Kate Walsh, president of NCTQ. “Programs in our top 25 percent understand that their most important job is to deliver well prepared teachers to classrooms by paying a lot of attention to the nuts and bolts of what it takes to become effective.”

To read the NCTQ’s full Landscapes in Teacher Prep report, visit https://nctq.org/dmsView/US_2017_Landscape. For more information about Ouachita’s teacher education program, contact Dr. Jeff Root at [email protected] or (870) 245-5510.

 

By Sarah Davis

November 20, 2017

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