Teacher Preparation Program Accountability:
Alabama

Analysis of Alabama's policies

Alabama's approval process for its traditional and alternate route teacher preparation programs could do more to hold programs accountable for the quality of the teachers they produce.

Most importantly, Alabama does not collect or report data that connect student achievement gains to teacher preparation programs.

Alabama does, however, rely on some objective, meaningful data to measure the performance of traditional teacher preparation programs. First-year teachers must demonstrate satisfactory performance on the state's teacher evaluation instrument. Surveys of employers and recent graduates to assess on-the-job performance must also be used, in addition to consideration of separate grades for the basic skills and content-knowledge components of the state's assessment program. Units are required to "establish, publish and implement policies to guarantee the success of individuals who complete its approved programs." Within the first two years of employment, units must provide remediation at no cost to individuals who receive less than the required minimum composite score on the state's teacher evaluation instrument.

Alabama also appears to apply some transparent, measurable criteria for conferring program approval of its traditional programs. The state awards letter grades to these programs annually. If the grade for a program is a C or higher, no action is required. If over a two-year period, a program receives two Ds, two Fs, or a combination of a D and an F, then the state must authorize a special review and, based on the evidence, may rescind approval of the program. Regrettably, there is no evidence that the state's criteria for conferring program approval are resulting in greater accountability. In the past three years, not one program in the state has been identified in required federal reporting as low performing.

Alabama made its findings available by posting the data and program grades on its website. However, the site has not been updated since 2009.

In Alabama, the state maintains full authority over teacher preparation program approval. However, if programs choose to do so, CAEP accreditation is an option for state program approval.

Citation

Alabama Administrative Code 290-3-3-.56 Teacher Prep Report Cards https://web.alsde.edu/home/Reports/TeacherPrepReportCards.aspx Title II State Reports https://title2.ed.gov http://caepnet.org

Recommendations for Alabama

Collect data that connect student achievement gains to teacher preparation programs. 
As one way to measure whether programs are producing effective classroom teachers, Alabama should consider the academic achievement gains of students taught by programs' graduates, averaged over the first three years of teaching. Data that are aggregated to the institution (e.g., combining elementary and secondary programs) rather than disaggregated to the specific preparation program are not useful for accountability purposes. Such aggregation can mask significant differences in performance among programs. Alabama reports some data at the program level and should do so for all collected data for accountability purposes.

Establish minimum standards of performance for accountability purposes for all licensure pathways.
Alabama appears to apply some measurable criteria for conferring program approval to its traditional programs. The state should also set such standards for performance for its alternate route programs for each category of data collected.

Ensure that criteria for program approval result in greater accountability.
Alabama has taken more steps than many states to develop an accountability system for teacher preparation programs. The state should ensure that its system is sufficient to differentiate program performance, including among alternate route programs, and that follow-up actions are taken as warranted for poorly performing programs.

State response to our analysis

Alabama recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.