Readers debate reputation of Western Michigan University’s College of Education
How good is Western Michigan University’s College of Education?
A blog post raised that issue this week in the wake of a study by the National Council of Teacher Quality that looked at student-teaching programs. The study ranked 134 programs based on five criteria and WMU was rated “weak.”
The blog post said that rating might not come as a surprise to the education community, contending that, in general, WMU’s program has a mediocre reputation. The post cited conversations with K-12 officials over the years, as well as the responses of former WMU President Judith Bailey and Diether Haenicke in years past when asked about the College of Education.
No surprise, the post drew some heated response from defenders of WMU, including Ashley McIntyre, who identified herself as a WMU special education major.
She said the post minimized “the work of many passionate students determined to make a difference in the field of education.”
She also said that her experience at WMU compared favorably with Michigan State, which has the top-ranked program in the country in elementary and secondary education.
“Having completed two and a half years at MSU with great success I can say that WMU can absolutely compete with the school that you mention as “down the road,” she wrote.
“The WMU teacher education program may not be quite as strong as perhaps it once was, but it’s still a solid program,” wrote bluekzookid. “Frankly it has been under-resourced, especially from a facilities perspective, for years.”
Others who have been in WMU’s education program were less complementary.
“Western and its Department of Ed. should be called Grand Theft Schooling,” wrote decaturmethodz. “The lucky intern gets a good experience in the classroom if they get a good mentor to learn under. From that teacher in the classroom the student teacher will learn things NEVER ‘taught’ at Western.”
Wrote erlenmeyer: “My take on the College of Education (or whatever its name is now) is that it’s way too big for its britches. There are very few similarities even between different sections of the same class.”
Mizzy made the point that if K-12 officials think WMU could be doing a better job, then they should active push for change.
“If principals and superintendents have noticed the new teachers coming from (Western or any other college) are not very prepared in some areas, do they let the college know?
What good is it to complain unless they have done that? And I’m talking specifics here. If the teachers from a certain college almost always have to be shown how to do a good lesson plan or whatever, shouldn’t the principal give a heads up to the college so it could be looked into and possibly fixed or changed?” she wrote.
Outside of the box offered this perspective: “Most people in education would put CMU at the top for teaching in general ed and put EMU at the top for special ed. WMU is a distant 3rd. One of the weird things about MSU is that it is highly touted as an education school but their school of education is not very good. Their ranking is due to the fact that MSU is a research institution where as CMU and EMU as not considered research institutions but rather teaching schools.”
