The College of Staten Island does a better job of preparing future
teachers than any other public college in the city, new data
suggests.
In the 2001-2002 academic year, 49 of the 50 students at CSI who
took both examinations for teacher certification in New York State
passed.
The results gave the Willowbrook school a 98 percent passing rate,
the highest among City University of New York (CUNY) institutions.
"We are justly proud of the fact that our CSI students, who pay a
public school tuition, can compete so successfully with any school
in the state," said Dr. Marlene Springer, president of CSI.
David Podell, vice president for academic affairs at CSI, attributed
the college's success, in part, to its new professors.
"The faculty who are coming in now have more recent doctorates. So
the approach to the teaching of math, for example, has changed," he
said. "Our students are learning newer methods, different methods."
The borough's other colleges also produced high passing rates on the
teacher certification exams.
Of the 416 pupils at the Grymes Hill and Queens campuses of St.
John's University, 368 students passed both the written Liberal Arts
and Science Test (LAST) and the Assessment of Teaching Skills (ATS).
The results merited the school an 88 percent passing rate.
At Wagner College, 90 percent of the 103 students who sat for the
exams passed muster.
"We're gratified with the pass rate but we're always trying to help
more of our other students," said Dr. Jeffrey Glanz, chairman of the
education department at Wagner.
While passing rates have remained relatively constant at Wagner,
today's new teachers have had more exposure to technology-driven
instruction than previous generations, he said.
Meanwhile, scores at most of the city's other public colleges were
also good: Brooklyn College, 87 percent; City College, 87 percent;
Hunter College, 96 percent; Lehman College, 92 percent, and Queens
College, 93 percent.
But two CUNY schools performed poorly: Medgar Evers College, 62
percent, and York College, 67 percent.
