McCullough praises Illinois State University Teacher Education program

(August 20, 2007) During the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough praised Illinois State University for requiring future teachers to have a subject major outside of education. During his presentation, he warned that students in this country are growing up historically illiterate. He told the group that a key to solving that problem is to make sure teachers are better prepared for the classroom. “For a young person to go into teaching and graduate with a degree in education and no major of the usual kind is to send that person into the classroom with an enormous handicap, which will be passed on to her students,” he said.