Is your teacher prepared? Training programs undergo scrutiny

This story, aired by NPR, considers the value of teacher training programs across the country. Some U.S. schools are declining to participate in a study that will be published by the U.S. News and World Report later this year. The study will compile success rates and curriculums of different training programs for prospective teachers.

Some school officials, however, don't see the merit in compiling this data. While one school may give a biology teacher his credentials upon completion of nine biology courses, another institution may issue a similar degree with just one biology course required. Therefore, training programs for teachers vary across the board to such an extent that standards for teacher preparation have become impossible to set. Private prep programs are usually off-limits to public scrutiny and don't even apply to the data in the survey. This is all fine and good, but one can't help but wonder: who's educating our educators, and how effective is this path to education?