Program Reporting Requirements: District of
Columbia
Teacher Preparation Policy
Analysis of District of Columbia's policies
Minimum Standards of Performance: The District of Columbia does not require programs to collect meaningful data, and therefore does not set minimum standards of performance for these data.
Program Accountability:
As a result of the lack of minimum standards of performance, the District of Columbia does not articulate consequences for programs that fail to meet specific criteria. Programs are measured against Organizational Standards and Subject Area Standards. However, it is unclear how programs are measured objectively against these standards and at what point a program fails to meet minimum standards and therefore has its approval revoked.
State Report Cards: The District of Columbia does not produce and publish an annual report card that shows all the data the state collects on individual teacher preparation programs.
Program Approval Process: The District of Columbia allows overlap of national accreditation and state approval. CAEP accreditation is the sole requirement to earn continuing state approval for traditional preparation programs. However, the District of Columbia does maintain full authority over teacher preparation program approval for non-traditional preparation programs only and conducts program renewal site visits for these programs every three years. Additionally, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) will develop and implement new processes to review and monitor EPP quality and EPP and program review and approval. Pending the promulgation of new regulations, the District is suspending all approvals and renewals of EPP programs until August 2021 or a new rule is developed, whichever comes first. This does not affect the District's grade in this goal.
Recommendations for District of Columbia
Establish the minimum standards of performance for each category of data.
The District of Columbia should establish precise minimum standards for teacher preparation program performance for each category of data it collects to help clarify expectations regarding program quality.
Ensure that criteria for program approval result in greater accountability.
The District of Columbia should ensure that programs are held accountable for meeting minimum standards of performance, and that the District's accountability system is sufficient to differentiate performance among programs, including alternate route programs. The District should establish clear follow-up actions for programs failing to meet these standards, including remediation or loss of program approval as appropriate. For programs exceeding minimum standards, the District of Columbia should consider finding effective ways to disseminate best practices.
Publish an annual report card on the state's website.
In order to ensure that stakeholders have the most up-to-date
information, the District of Columbia should produce an annual report card that clearly
displays program-level data the state collects on individual teacher
preparation programs. This report card should, like the program
reports, be publicly available on the state's website, at a minimum. Data
should be presented in a manner that transparently conveys whether programs
have met performance standards.
Maintain full authority over the process for approving all teacher preparation programs.
The District of Columbia should not cede or share its approval authority for traditional preparation programs housed in institutions of higher education to a national accrediting body; instead, the state should ensure, as it does with non-traditional programs, that it is the entity that directly considers the evidence of program performance and makes the final determination of whether programs should continue to be authorized to prepare teachers.
State response to our analysis
The District of Columbia was helpful in providing NCTQ with facts that enhanced this analysis.
Updated: March 2021
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Teacher Preparation
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How we graded
1D: Program Reporting Requirements
- Minimum Standards: The state should establish a minimum standard of performance for each category of data that is collected.
- Articulated Consequences for Failure to Meet Minimum Standards: The state should have articulated consequences for programs failing to meet minimum standards of performance or other program review criteria and should require specific steps to develop a remediation plan. Program accountability should include the possibility of the loss of program approval.
- Annual Reporting: The state should publish an annual report card that provides data collected for each individual teacher preparation program as part of the program approval process or the report card provides data that indicates the quality of preparation provided by an institution or program (e.g. licensure pass rates, teaching effectiveness of program graduates, employer satisfaction survey data).
- Approval Authority: The state should retain full authority over its process approving teacher preparation programs and should not grant any approval authority to accrediting bodies.
One-quarter of the total goal score is earned based on the following:
- One-quarter credit: The state will earn one-quarter of a point if minimum standards of performance are set for each category of data the teacher preparation programs are required to report.
Articulated Consequences for Failure to Meet Minimum Standards
One-quarter of the total goal score is earned based on the following:
- One-quarter credit: The state will earn one-quarter of a point if it holds teacher preparation programs accountable, and clearly articulates the consequences for failing to meet the minimum standards, which may include loss of program approval.
Annual Reporting
One-quarter of the total goal score is earned based on the following:
- One-quarter credit: The state will earn one-quarter of a point if it publishes data collected as part of the state's program approval process of individual teacher preparation programs on an annual basis or, the state will earn one-quarter of a point if it publishes data that indicates the quality of preparation provided by an institution or program (e.g. licensure pass rates, teaching effectiveness of program graduates, employer satisfaction survey data) on an annual basis.
Approval Authority
One-quarter of the total goal score is earned based on the following:
- One-quarter credit: The state will earn one-quarter of a point if it retains full authority over the process for approving teacher preparation programs.
Research rationale
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]
[1] For general information about teacher preparation program approval see Rotherham, A. J., & Mead, S. (2004). Back to the future: The history and politics of state teacher licensure and certification. In F. Hess, A. J. Rotherham, & K. Walsh (Eds.), A qualified teacher in every classroom (11-47). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. Retrieved from https://www.nctq.org/nctq/research/1109818629821.pdf
[2] For additional discussion and research of how teacher education programs can add value to their teachers, see National Council on Teacher Quality. (2017). Teacher Prep Review. Retrieved from http://www.nctq.org/teacherPrep/2016/home.do
[3] Walsh, K., & Jacobs, S. (2007). Alternative certification isn't alternative. Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Retrieved from
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED498382.pdf
[4] For additional research on the status of teacher quality and the strengths and weaknesses of accreditation programs and policies in the U.S., see: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education. (2010). The secretary's seventh annual report on teacher quality: A highly qualified teacher in every classroom. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/teachprep/t2r7.pdf
[5] For a discussion of the lack of evidence that national accreditation status enhances teacher preparation programs' effectiveness, see: Ballou, D., & Podgursky, M. (1999, July). Teacher training and licensure: A layman's guide. Marci Kanstoroom and Chester E. Finn., Jr. (eds.), In Better teachers, better schools (pp. 45-47). Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.edexcellence.net/sites/default/files/publication/pdfs/btrtchrs_10.pdf; Greenberg, J., & Walsh, K. (2008, June). No common denominator: The preparation of elementary teachers in mathematics by America's education schools. Washington, DC: National Council on Teacher Quality. Retrieved from http://www.nctq.org/dmsView/No_Common_Denominator_NCTQ_Report; Walsh, K., Glaser, D., & Wilcox, D. (2006, May). What education schools aren't teaching about reading and what elementary teachers aren't learning. Washington, DC: National Council on Teacher Quality. Retrieved from http://www.nctq.org/dmsView/What_Ed_Schools_Arent_Teaching_About_Reading_NCTQ_Report
[6] See Walsh, K., Joseph, N., & Lewis, A. (2016, November). Within our grasp: Achieving higher admissions standards in teacher prep. 2016 State Teacher Policy Yearbook Report Series. Retrieved from http://www.nctq.org/dmsView/Admissions_Yearbook_Report