Prominent Teacher-Educator Assails Field, Suggests New Accrediting Body in Report

But others finding fault with Levine’s conclusions, methodology.

In a new study that has already raised some hackles, a noted expert on teacher education paints the field as a troubled one in which a majority of aspiring teachers are educated in low-quality programs that do not sufficiently prepare them for the classroom.

In his 140-page report, which includes surveys of alumni, school principals, and deans of teacher-training institutions, as well as case studies of 28 programs that cover the wide spectrum of teacher education, Arthur E. Levine, the former president of Teachers College, Columbia University, describes such programs as “unruly and chaotic” Wild West towns that lack a standard approach to preparing teachers.

Universities that produce a majority of teacher graduates have lower admission standards, professors with lesser credentials, and fewer resources, and they produce graduates who are less effective in the...