Despite growing evidence of the importance of high-quality teaching, the vast majority of the nation's teachers are being prepared in programs that have low admission and graduation standards and cling to an outdated vision of teacher education, according to "Educating School Teachers," a report released Sept. 18.

The report, issued by the Education Schools Project, identifies several model programs but finds that most education schools are engaged in a "pursuit of irrelevance," with curricula in disarray and faculty disconnected from classrooms and colleagues. These schools have "not kept pace with changing demographics, technology, global competition, and pressures to raise student achievement," the study says.

Three out of five education school alumni (61 percent) say their teacher-education training did not prepare them well to cope with the realities of today's classrooms, according to a national survey conducted for the study. School principals also gave teacher-education programs low grades, with fewer than one-third of those surveyed reporting that schools of education prepare teachers at least "moderately well" to address the needs of students with disabilities (30 percent), a diverse cultural background (28 percent), or limited English proficiency (16 percent).

Fewer than half of principals surveyed reported that education school alumni are very well or moderately well prepared to use technology in instruction (46 percent), use student performance assessment techniques (42 percent), or implement curriculum and performance standards (41 percent).

"Teacher education is the Dodge City of the education world," said Arthur Levine, the author of the report, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and former president of Columbia University Teachers College. "Like the fabled Wild West town, it is unruly and chaotic. There is no standard approach to where and how teachers should be prepared, and the ongoing debate over whether teaching is a profession or a craft has too often blurred the mission of education schools that are uncertain whether to become professional schools or continue to be grounded in the more academic world of arts and sciences."

Because universities tend to rely on schools of education as "cash cows," the report said, the quality of teacher education is compromised by setting low admissions standards to help boost enrollments and revenues. Although the SAT and GRE scores of aspiring secondary-school teachers compare with the national average, the scores of future elementary-school teachers fall near the bottom of all test takers, with GRE scores reportedly 100 points below the national average.

State quality-control mechanisms focus too much on process, not substance, and vary dramatically, the report claims. For example, the amount of field work required ranges from 30 hours in one state to 300 hours in another, and the number of required reading credits ranges from two to 12, it says.