Hunter College Excels in Teacher Prep

Kudos to Hunter College and David Steiner (who, before he was NYS Ed Commissioner (John King’s predecessor), was head of Hunter’s School of Education and partnered with KIPP, Uncommon Schools, and Achievement First to create what is now the pioneering Relay Graduate School of Education):

Dear Colleagues,

I write to share some good news about the Hunter College School of Education.

NCTQ and U.S. News & World Report today released new nationwide ratings of teacher preparation programs in which the Hunter College School of Education achieved extraordinary results. NCTQ's ratings indicate that Hunter offers the greatest breadth of quality across programs in the country, with all five of our scored programs in the 96th percentile or higher nationwide.

Hunter is cited in NCTQ's report as “the only institution that has three highly rated programs." Our score on undergraduate elementary teacher preparation was the highest awarded to any such program in the country, and only a tiny number of graduate elementary, secondary, and special education programs scored higher than ours.

A strong argument could be made that Hunter's School of Education, as a whole, has the best overall NCTQ results in the country. Although four Ed Schools each had a single program rated at four stars, no school but Hunter had such strength across the board, with three programs on the "Honor Roll" for recognized quality (defined as receiving three or more stars). Hunter is also commended for "strong design" for our commitment to using outcomes data to improve our programs - and celebrated for delivering extremely high quality at "bargain" tuition. These strong results are a great credit to our faculty and the leadership of President Raab. 

A final note: The NCTQ rating methodology has provoked controversy. This debate is important, but I write today to note that, whatever you may think of the strengths and weaknesses of the approach, Hunter's ratings are yet another indication of the high quality of our programs. 

Best wishes,

David

Dr. David M. Steiner

Klara and Larry Silverstein Dean

School of Education,

Hunter College, CUNY. 

Founding Director 

CUNY Institute for Education Policy,

Roosevelt House, NYC