Program Reporting Requirements: Michigan
General Teacher Preparation Policy
Analysis of Michigan's policies
Minimum Standards of Performance: Michigan has set and made public minimum standards of performance for programs. Program performance is compared to these
standards in the annual Educator Preparation Institution (EPI) score reports.
Programs earn points based on three criteria: passage rates on the
Michigan Tests for Teacher Certification (MTTC); satisfaction and perception
data from surveys administered to teacher candidates and candidate supervisors,
twice annually; and evaluation ratings of program completers' effectiveness in
the classroom. Program performance on these three measures is assigned a point
value on a 100-point scale. Each measure is weighted, and the program receives
an overall score, which must be above 84.5.
Program Accountability: Michigan holds programs accountable for meeting minimum standards of performance. All programs, regardless of meeting the
overall performance cut-score, are assigned a phase in the state's EPI corrective
action system. The phase determines the EPI's reported performance category and
thus the corrective action requirements expected for the next year. The state
mandates that "a phase number of 0 or 1 results in a reported
category of Satisfactory; a phase number of 2 or 3 results in a reported
category of At Risk; and a phase number of 4 through 6 results in a reported
category of Low Performing." Programs in the Low Performing category must
take corrective action or they may be shut down.
State Report Cards: Michigan publishes annual report cards showing the data the state has collected on individual teacher preparation programs and the programs' performance against the state's standards.
Program Approval Process: Michigan does not maintain full authority over the teacher preparation program approval process. Instead, the state requires that programs are approved by the state's Office of Professional Preparation Services (OPPS) for initial approval and for reapproval when standards for individual endorsement programs are updated, regardless of the program's national accreditation status. Once full approval is granted, ongoing program approval is based on national accreditation through Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) and OPPS monitoring.
Recommendations for Michigan
Maintain full authority over the process for approving teacher preparation programs.
While Michigan retains authority over initial program approval, the state should not cede its program renewal authority to another accrediting body; instead, the state should ensure 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
Michigan provided NCTQ with facts that enhanced this analysis.
The state asserted that it does maintain full authority over the process for approving teacher preparation programs. While Michigan agreed that earning and maintaining national accreditation is a requirement for maintenance of ongoing institutional approval to operate as an educator preparation institution, the state noted that processes for approval for specific programs of study, as well as recommendations for closure, are governed entirely by the Michigan Department of Education's Office of Professional Preparation Services (OPPS). Michigan stated that as part of the site visit for CAEP accreditation, OPPS representatives review and update records of the educator preparation institution's (EPI) program approvals to ensure that all programs being offered have passed review under the current preparation standards for each field, as well as review individual programs' licensure test data with the EPI to ensure that candidates demonstrate comparable proficiency across all pathways within a given endorsement field.
Additional details on the program approval process can be found in the Teacher Certification Code.
Updated: December 2017
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Michigan
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General Teacher Preparation
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- Program Reporting Requirements
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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 hold teacher preparation programs accountable for meeting minimum standards of performance. As such, the state should have articulated consequences for programs failing to meet these standards and should require specific steps to develop a remediation plan. This may include on-site program inspection by qualified external bodies that may lead to loss of program approval.
- Annual Reporting: The state should produce and publish an annual report card that provides all of the collected data for each individual teacher preparation program.
- 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.
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 for meeting the minimum standards of performance, and if it clearly articulates the consequences for failing to meet the minimum standards, which may include loss of program approval.
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 all collected data on individual teacher preparation programs on an annual basis.
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