Such colleges, based in universities all over the nation, are “dangerously” out of touch with the needs and realities of today’s urban and racially-mixed schools, according to the report, published by the Holmes Group, a consortium of 89 deans from university-based schools of education.

“There is a direct link between the sub-standard quality of America’s school system and the system that prepares our teachers and other education leaders, ” said Judith Lanier, president of the Holmes Group and education professor at Michigan State University.

“More of the same on the part of universities and their education schools cannot be tolerated and will only exacerbate the problems of the (state) schools. Institutions preparing educators should either adopt reforms . . . or surrender their franchise.”

Such harsh words might be less surprising from the mouth of a Republican congressman. But this criticism is coming from within the teaching-training profession and the universities. The report’s authors give the impression that blunt talk is the only way to wake up the higher education world.

Colleges need to turn themselves into professional development schools - the educational equivalent of medical schools attached to teaching hospitals, say the reformers. These schools are being developed in various parts of America and the best ones link a university directly to schools and have trainee teachers working as interns.

They also involve professors and practising teachers working together to develop new ways of teaching and ways to improve the curriculum - for school as well as for college classrooms.

In the new report, education professors are accused of being unable to train prospective teachers to deal with problems in schools. Their courses are watered-down, out of date and not connected to one another.

Colleges are accused of not recruiting enough professors and students from ethnic minorities. Universities are accused of turning over teacher training to part-time instructors and graduate students.

Fewer than 5 per cent of education professors have taught in urban schools, says the report, Tomorrow’s Schools of Education. Many have not taught in decades. Too few institutions produce quality research on teaching or help teachers apply new research in class.

Higher education should bear the brunt of criticism for lack of quality and innovation in teacher education, says the report. Too often universities treat their education schools like poor stepchildren, penalising them when they get involved with state schools and denying support for innovation.

“We are calling for the invention of a new academic discipline devoted to the intellectual needs of children and a new kind of faculty member as equally at home in a school as in the university,” says Frank Murray, dean of the college of education at the University of Delaware.

Deans of education in the Holmes Group have pledged themselves to making the required changes. One recommended reform is a five-year teacher’s degree. Students would study a liberal arts subject in the first four years, and work with local schools in the fifth year.

Other reforms are the aggressive recruitment of ethnic-minority professors and students to produce teachers who are sensitive to ethnic diversity. By 2020, American classroooms will be 46 per cent ethnic minority, says the report. But today’s professors and students are overwhelmingly white and monolingual.

Tomorrow’s Schools of Education, available from the Holmes Group, 501 Erickson Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824-1034, USA.