Criticism of teacher education is wrong

It was disappointing to see The Baltimore Sun provide such visibility to the 2023 review of the nation’s programs of teacher education conducted by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ). Few major news or education outlets chose to highlight this flawed institutional ranking (“Maryland colleges score poorly on preparing teachers to teach reading, according to report,” June 28).

Throughout its existence, the NCTQ and its methodology (which is based solely on reviews of published course syllabi as opposed to site visits or other outcome measures) has found critics across the ideological spectrum — from Lynn Gangone, president of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, to Diane Ravitch, president of the Network for Public Education. More than half the nation’s undergraduate or graduate programs in education receive “D” or “F” grade in this review, and major universities such as the University of California, Berkeley, and Columbia chose not to participate.

The University System of Maryland (USM) is extremely proud of its colleges and programs of teacher education and believes there are far better ways to measure their important contributions to the schools, classrooms and students in the state. All USM teacher training programs are nationally accredited under the rigorous standards established by AACTE and students graduating from our programs perform extremely well in annual state-certification exams such as PRAXIS.

In addition, USM education deans were sought out for their expertise to be major contributors to the recent Kirwan Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education which led to the highly-regarded Blueprint for Maryland’s Future legislation. The Blueprint provides an evidence-based policy platform that addresses the full complexity of preparing teachers and requires, among other things, a full year internship, state-specific exams of reading and grade level content for initial certification. This approach means that Maryland will lead the nation in teacher preparation and far exceeds the limited nature of NCTQ’s flawed program review.

Preparing our future teachers is incredibly important to the future of Maryland, and USM institutions are doing their part and leading the nation in this work.

— Alison Wrynn, PhD, BaltimoreThe writer is senior vice chancellor for academic and student affairs for the University System of Maryland.

Red Line can be engine for economic development

There was a letter to the editor suggesting that the proposed Red Line would be an economic failure (“Does the Red Line make sense financially?” July 3). Yet if public transportation could show a profit, a private company would already be providing it. Profit is not the reason that there’s a need for public transportation. The actual reason for having public transportation is economic development in the area and economic mobility for folks who can’t afford their own private transportation.

Without public transportation, if you can’t afford a car, you can’t hold a job, and if you can’t hold a job, you’ll never be able to afford a car.

The Red Line planners are thinking too small. The Red Line should not be just an inside the Baltimore Beltway entity. It should be the engine of economic development and social mobility of a larger area. It should go from Frederick to Essex.

— Henry Farkas, Pikesville

Church isn’t ridding itself of child abuse past

In explaining the decision of the Archdiocese of Baltimore to add 42 names to the list of persons accused of sexual abuse, a spokesperson for the archdiocese stated that the decision builds on the commitment to “transparency, healing and to ridding the Church of the scourge of sexual abuse” (“Baltimore’s Catholic archdiocese adds 42 names to list of staff credibly accused of sexual abuse,” June 30).

Words alone will not rid the Catholic Church of the scourge of sexual abuse. Childhood sexual abuse often ruins lives well into adulthood. In response to this fact the Maryland General Assembly enacted and Gov. Wes Moore signed the Child Victims Act of 2023, waiving the statute of limitations which for many years had prevented abuse cases from being heard in court. The act passed the General Assembly with overwhelming votes (45-2 in the Senate and 132-2 in the House of Delegates) and Attorney General Anthony Brown has vowed to defend it.

But the Baltimore archdiocese opposed the legislation and plans to challenge its constitutionality. This will delay compensation to the victims, perhaps for years, and more importantly, the archdiocese is a serious opponent, possessing legal firepower and the respect which comes from its many good works over the years. The church cannot rid itself of the scourge of sexual abuse until it compensates the victims and accepts the Child Victims Act of 2023 as a way to accomplish this.

— John C. Murphy, Baltimore