NCTQ Rankings in a Tenuous, Post-COVID Teacher Preparatory Landscape: Help or Harm?

This was the first time in my recollection that the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) (in its 2023 report entitled “Teacher Prep Review: Strengthening Elementary Reading Instruction”) tried to explicitly tie literacy-specific teacher preparatory programs’ lack of adherence to their debatable standard with the programs doing an actual disservice to Black and Brown schoolchildren nationally. As an educator devoting much of my scholarly work and research to the education and schooling of children of African descent, that was the proverbial “bridge too far.”