Supple attends education summit

SAN MARCOS, TEXAS — Jerome H. Supple of Southwest Texas State University was among the 100 university presidents who participated in U.S. Education Secretary Richard Riley’s recent summit on the quality of teachers in American classrooms.

The Presidents’ Summit on Teacher Quality drew the heads of colleges and universities across the nation to the nation’s capital Sept. 15-16 to discuss the improvement of teacher preparation and to generate concrete action steps the presidents could take back to their own campuses.

“Evidence shows that what makes schools better is good teachers,” Supple said. “The quality of children’s teachers is a more important factor in their success in school than parents’ educational background, economic status, family situation, location or anything else.”

“We talked about how we can make sure we graduate good teachers, see them supported well and attract talented people into the field. Southwest Texas is already doing much of what we discussed, but we can always improve.”

Participants from Texas, in addition to Supple, were Diana Natalicio, president of the University of Texas at El Paso, and Howard D. Graves, chancellor of the Texas A&M System.