Caroline Porter of The Wall Street Journal reports on the Obama administration’s proposed new rules for teacher training programs that would tie federal aid to metrics — including how well their graduates perform in the job market.

Shockingly, many teachers are not happy about this development.

Job placement and the performance of students those graduates eventually teach. Programs would have to earn ratings of effective or higher for at least two of three years to qualify for TEACH grants, which provide up to $4,000 annually for individual students to put toward their teacher training. In 2014, the department gave out about 34,000 TEACH grants totaling nearly $100 million.

“New teachers want to do a great job for their kids, but often, they struggle at the beginning of their careers and have to figure out too much for themselves,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said.

For years Education experts have criticized teacher-preparation programs at the undergraduate and graduate level, saying they have a low bar for admittance and lack academic rigor. A 2013 federal report on teacher quality concluded that states had classified just nine programs of about 2,100 as low-performing in 2011. In the past 12 years, 34 states have never identified a teacher preparation program as low-performing.

The proposed rules drew mixed reaction. “We absolutely see this as a big deal,” said Deborah Koolbeck, director of government relations for the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. She said her organization viewed the news as federal overreach and described the linking of federal grants with program evaluations as “troubling.” She noted that states have developed their own reforms in recent years.

“This only makes every one of us wonder what they are going to do with higher education when they rate institutions of higher education,” said Ms. Koolbeck, referring to the Obama administration’s proposal for a national college-rating system.

..Many states already track student test scores to measure teacher performance. The practice is supported by the Obama administration and has drawn ire from some teachers and unions. Others in the field support the increased attention on teacher preparation programs, but said improvement needs to be made to the programs themselves.