WASHINGTON D.C.  – Operating under the premise that everything the federal government touches turns to gold, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is renewing his push to give D.C. bureaucrats oversight of the nation’s teacher colleges.

According to the Washington Post, Duncan “will propose regulations for teacher training programs this summer and seek input in a process that should result in final rules this year.”

Duncan believes that too many teacher colleges (or “schools of education”) are doing a crummy job of preparing future educators for the classroom. A big problem is that teachers-to-be don’t get enough hands-on experience in actual classrooms.

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The nation’s top education leader is also bothered by the lack of consistency that teacher colleges have in their admission requirements and curriculum.

Part of the Duncan’s proposed solution involves requiring teacher colleges that receive some federal funding to measure and track the job performance of their alumni, according to the Post.

“Programs that are producing teachers where students are less successful, they either need to change or do something else, go out of business,” Duncan said.

We agree that far too many of the nation’s teacher colleges are failing to properly train the next generation of educators. Instead of focusing on effective teaching methods, many activist university professors are indoctrinating future teachers in how to use the classroom to advance various left-wing social justice causes.

It’s been going on for decades and is a major reason why America’s K-12 schools are in serious academic decline.

We disagree, however, that the feds should take responsibility for deciding what gets taught in these schools of education. Federal bureaucrats are already exerting far too much influence on K-12 education through their cash-for-reform Race to the Top initiative, No Child Left Behind waiver program, and their involvement in “vetting” Common Core standardized tests.

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It seems that Duncan’s goal as education secretary is to place as much of the nation’s K-12 system under federal control as possible.

There’s no way the feds should be allowed to call the shots in teacher training programs, too.

It’s unclear if Congress would have a say over the proposed regulations, or if the Obama administration can impose the changes without congressional approval.

We would hope neither of the above occurs.

The most the education department should be allowed to do is issue a list of policy recommendations for teacher training programs that states can take or leave. State lawmakers could then decide which policies make sense for their state, and pass them into law if they so choose.

The Post notes that this is Duncan’s second attempt “to regulate the way that schools of education prepare teachers.” An earlier attempt in 2012 was derailed over Duncan’s insistence that teacher-prep programs be rated for quality through a variety of measures, “including test scores from students the teachers went on to have in class.”