Studies have shown teachers who have strong academic backgrounds tend to be more successful in the classroom. This finding should not be surprising--when is being smart ever a handicap?--yet there are a lot of educators who insist that it's not that important for a teacher to be smart. Without getting into what's most valuable in a teacher, we argue that it is "smarts" that enable teachers to master the job of teaching--to think quickly on their feet, communicate effectively with their students, and make spontaneous decisions--which some estimate number 1,500 a day.

NCTQ's Selection Criteria Standard examines if the teacher prep program is housed in an institution of higher education that is sufficiently selective (based on average SAT/ACT score or Barron's ratings) indicating that applicants are likely to be in the top half of the college-going population. If not, we check to see if the teacher prep program sets its own criteria to admit academically skilled candidates, requiring a standardized test of academic proficiency and/or minimum or average GPA that likely would put the program's teacher candidates in this top half. See Understanding Our Selection Criteria Standard.

In the past, advocates of increasing the diversity of the nation's teaching force, which is around 82 percent white compared to about half of the students, have expressed fears that raising the selectivity of teacher preparation programs would hurt this diversity effort. This, perhaps unconsciously, assumes that aspiring teachers of color cannot meet this higher standard.

Our research proves that teacher prep programs can be both selective and diverse. We found that among the 225 programs that met our selectivity criteria (the 26 percent who received an A grade), half were both selective and diverse. This study defined a diverse program as one with a proportion of teacher candidates of color greater than the program's institution as a whole or greater than the state's teacher workforce.

In addition, we found that among the programs located in institutions with relatively open admissions policy, more are requiring at least a 3.0 GPA for admission. This went from 44 programs in 2014 to 71 today.

These examples show that teacher prep programs can be both selective and diverse. The following 113 programs show that programs need not assume they must continue low standards in order to educate a more diverse teaching force.