Findings: Graduate outcomes / Graduates' effectiveness
Our evaluation of Illinois institutions indicates the following:
- All 12 of the public institutions obtain much of the information they should on what supervisors report about graduates' job performance (Standard 24). They also participate in a survey operated by Eastern Illinois University as an outgrowth of the state's Teacher Data Warehouse, providing feedback from hiring districts on their graduates' job performance one year into their teaching careers.
- Only two private institutions (Illinois Wesleyan University and National-Louis University) participate in the same employer survey as the 12 publics.
- Twenty private institutions report that they use "other means" to survey employers on their graduates' job retention and performance.
- Thirteen education schools, all private, do not appear to be collecting any information.
- The practices of five schools were unclear.
In terms of obtaining data on their graduates' effectiveness, the story is different: There is little utilization of output information (Standard 25). Part of the reason is that, unlike ground-breaking states like Louisiana, Illinois has not created the data systems that provide teacher preparation programs with the information they need. In view of the fact that the state has not provided education schools with a mechanism by which to obtain data on their graduates' effectiveness, we did not think it fair to hold the education schools fully accountable on this standard. For that reason, we provided a rating for education schools on the standard, but did not include the rating when calculating overall grades for any program.
That is not the end of the story, however. Acknowledging that the state has not provided a mechanism for institutions to obtain the data the education schools claim to want in this area, we note that two education schools have managed to obtain some data.
The University of Chicago has shown great initiative to develop a means that could be replicated by other Chicago-area institutions to use student performance data from the Consortium on Chicago School Research. The education school makes the necessary connections between teachers and their students by requiring that teacher candidates sign data-release forms upon applying to the program and collecting graduates' school unit and room numbers after they begin teaching.
In an entirely different approach, but one that might be used by other Illinois institutions, Aurora College examines publicly available student performance data from three local school districts to pinpoint data about graduates who are teaching the only classes at particular grade levels.
How Illinois institutions fare on this standard
How Illinois teacher preparation programs fare on this standard
