Bowles needs to make his words, actions stick

If you've ever done a serious closet-cleaning, you know about the one-year rule: If you haven't worn it in a year, out it goes. That's what UNC system President Erskine Bowles has asked North Carolina's education deans to do: sort through their closets, and have a throwing-out.

Specifically, Bowles wants the state's 15 education deans to identify the teacher training programs that work and eliminate the ones that don't. The goal? Matching the number of teachers with our state's demand and improving quality. He has said public schools will be the top priority of the state's universities. His words and actions suggest he intends to make that stick. Good.

"If they (the education deans) will do that, I will back them to get the resources they need to help us meet this challenge," Bowles said. "If they do not, I will make changes."

The problem is simple. Some 10,000 teachers leave the state's public school classrooms every year. Meanwhile, last year teacher training programs at the state's public universities graduated some 2,448 traditionally prepared teachers. Another 1,470 left trained to teach, but with degrees in other fields. Private colleges in North Carolina prepared some 1,000 traditional teachers; no numbers are available for how many lateral entry teachers private colleges are training.


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