New York—The Touro College Graduate School of Education ranked first in two categories of teacher preparation and rated highly overall, a New York City Department of Education (DOE) survey found.
The DOE analyzed new hires at 12 teacher-education programs supplying new teachers to the New York City school system. Touro ranked first in the percentage of its graduates who earned licenses in “high-needs” fields, and first in the proportion of its teachers earning special education licenses.
Among teachers hired between the 2009-10 and 2011-12 school years, Touro led all programs with 92 percent of its graduates earning licenses in high-needs subject areas, which primarily include special education, English as a second language, math and science.
Eighty-six percent of Touro graduates received special education licenses, a proportion that far exceeds that of any other school, and is double the overall average of 43 percent for this “high-needs” subject area. Touro officials pointed out that the school’s graduate program was expressly structured to enable students to gain certification in both general and special education by earning a single degree.
“The results confirm what we have always known: that our Graduate School of Education is among the very best in preparing teachers for a career in a New York City classroom,” said Dr. Alan Kadish, president and CEO of Touro College and University System. “We are proud that we have supplied thousands upon thousands of teachers to New York City schools, and that they rank very highly among their peers.”
The DOE survey of local colleges, including Columbia University, St. John’s, NYU and CUNY, also ranked Touro’s Graduate School of Education third in retention, which measures the percentage of teachers who stay on the job after three years. This retention analysis covers teachers hired during the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years.
The survey also ranked Touro among the top four schools supplying qualified teachers overall. Among teachers hired between the 2008-09 and 2011-12 school years, 97 percent of their graduates—the same ratio as that of Queens College—were ranked “highly effective,” “effective” or “developing.” Only City College and Hunter College, at 98 percent, did slightly better.
“This is a very positive report in terms of what we are doing,” said Dr. Arnold Spinner, associate dean of Touro’s Graduate School of Education. “It shows that not only are we on the right track, but in many ways we are leading the way.”
Touro’s Graduate School of Education—which also supplies teachers to a small number of private schools—graduates more than 1,100 new teachers a year.
City officials said the survey was designed to see if the colleges and universities providing the city with the most teachers were successfully preparing them for a career in education, and to determine which schools were doing the most to meet the school system’s most-critical educational needs.
Established in 1993, Touro’s Graduate School of Education currently enrolls approximately 3,600 students, most of whom are in the Master of Science programs in Education and Special Education. Other M.S. programs are offered in Teaching Literacy, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), Mathematics Education, Instructional Technology and School Leadership.
In addition to its degree programs, the school conducts significant research through its Lander Center for Educational Research, a federally-funded operation that helps public schools address problems that impact student achievement and equality of educational opportunity. This year, the school also received a $1.9 million grant from the federal government to operate one of 10 “Equity Assistance Centers” in the U.S. to help public schools address issues of race, gender and national origin that impact on student achievement and opportunity.
