Dear Valued Students, Alumni, and Members of the Crookston Community,
I was proud to share the great news that, following a comprehensive review, the Minnesota Professional Educators and Licensing Standards Board (PELSB) granted University of Minnesota Crookston’s teacher preparation program full institutional continuous accreditation through 2024. This was completed last year and is the highest approval that PELSB confers. This accreditation followed a multi-year self-study that culminated in a 300-page report and an intensive three-day site visit during which leading teacher preparation experts interviewed faculty, students, and alumni and scoured through every aspect of our program. In short, this was a highly rigorous evaluation of our program. The result was outstanding.
You may have heard that the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) recently assigned a score of “F” to the early reading aspect of UMN Crookston’s teacher preparation program. While we will always consider constructive feedback, I believe that some context is important in this case. NCTQ submitted a public records request last May to receive copies of syllabi for five courses. We agreed, but after NCTQ learned about the nominal fee that we charge, which is standard practice in higher education, they dropped their request. NCTQ has not reviewed any program documents. They have not conferred with faculty, students, or alumni, and they have not performed any direct assessment of the quality of our teacher preparation program. The last time that we submitted content from our program to them was in 2013.
Thus, after carefully considering the context of the external evaluations of our teacher preparation program, I am fully confident in the quality of our teacher preparation program. I am also proud that we maintain this quality while serving among the highest proportions of future teachers who are first-generation college students, students from low-income families, and students from rural communities like Crookston. Our graduates are the future of education in the region, and I believe the future is bright!
Sincerely,
John L. Hoffman, Ph.D.
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