Teacher Preparation Policy
The state should collect and publicly report key data on the quality of teacher preparation programs. This goal was reorganized in 2021.
Although no state is awarded "best practice" honors, NCTQ would like to commend the 11 states for collecting and reporting student growth data by program. Virginia is commended for publishing final (best attempt) pass rates of all test takers at the program level.
Program level:
State level: CA, IL, IN, MA, MN, TX
State does not provide data for all test takers. : AK, AL, AR, AZ, CO, CT, DC, DE, GA, HI, IA, ID, KS, KY, LA, MD, ME, MI, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, UT, VA, VT, WA, WV, WY
Footnotes
CA: First-time pass rates at the state level are only available for the CBEST and RICA examinations.
Yes.: CO, DE, FL, IL, LA, MA, NJ, OH, RI, TN, VA
No.: AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CT, DC, GA, HI, IA, ID, IN, KS, KY, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NM, NV, NY, OK, OR, PA, SC, SD, TX, UT, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY
Footnotes
AL: Data is provided at the institutional, and not program level.
CT: Data is not yet publicly available.
MN: Data is not yet publicly available.
NV: Data is not yet publicly available.
TX: Data is not yet publicly available.
1C: Program Performance Measures
The state should examine a number of factors when measuring the performance of and approving teacher preparation programs.[1] Although the quality of both the subject-matter preparation and professional sequence is crucial, there are also additional measures that can provide the state and the public with meaningful, readily understandable indicators of how well programs are doing when it comes to preparing teachers to be successful in the classroom.[2]
States have made great strides in building data systems with the capacity to provide evidence of teacher performance.[3] These same data systems can be used to link teacher effectiveness to the teacher preparation programs from which they came. States should make such data, as well as other objective measures that go beyond licensure test pass rates, central components of their teacher preparation program approval processes, and they should establish precise standards for performance that are more useful for accountability purposes.[4]
National accrediting bodies, such as CAEP, are raising the bar, but are no substitute for states' own policy. A number of states now have somewhat more rigorous academic standards for admission by virtue of requiring that programs meet CAEP's accreditation standards. However, whether CAEP will uniformly uphold its standards (especially as they have already backtracked on the GPA requirement) and deny accreditation to programs that fall short of these admission requirements remains to be seen.[5] Clear state policy would eliminate this uncertainty and send an unequivocal message to programs about the state's expectations.[6]