As outlined in our methodology, for most institutions we randomly chose two programs, one elementary, the other secondary. Each could be at either the undergraduate or graduate level. For the top 200 producers, we aimed to get four programs.
Most of our standards require documents -- observation instruments, lesson planning templates, employer surveys, or syllabi -- created and used by the institution. If we don't get the data, we can't do the analysis.
Ten percent of the institutions we examined submitted material to us voluntarily. For the rest of the public institutions we had to use open records requests. Sometimes the quoted price for those documents was so high we had to reduce our request, which meant that we couldn't include a program in the Review.
So, between random selection and taking programs out because of high charges for open records requests, there will be some programs that a search on our site won't turn up.
But if teacher preparation program leaders want us to rate programs we couldn't include in our first edition, we're more than happy to get the data we need now for the second edition, which will come out next June.Our aim for the second edition is expand the number of institutions we evaluate. We're already collecting data and are very excited that several colleges and universities who didn't participate in our first edition are already reaching out to send us data (and several that are in this review have already started our forum process).
Just send us an e-mail to get things started.