Program Reporting Requirements: Missouri
General Teacher Preparation Policy
Analysis of Missouri's policies
Minimum Standards of Performance: Missouri has set and made public minimum standards of performance for programs. Program performance is compared to these standards in the Annual Performance Reports for Educator Preparation Programs (APR-EPP) and in the accreditation process. Programs receive points based on their performance against these standards. Benchmarks for some of these indicators have been set: 85 percent of program completers must meet the content GPA of at least 2.5; 90 percent of program completers must report at least "adequate" preparation at the end of their first year of teaching; and 90 percent of principals must report that program completers at their school had at least "adequate" preparation. In order for a program to be held accountable to these measures, it must cumulatively have 30 program completers over three years. Programs with fewer than that will have an APR-EPP published only for informational purposes, not for accountability decisions.
Program Accountability: Missouri holds programs accountable for meeting minimum standards of performance. Programs are categorized into tiers based on their overall performance. Programs that do not score well must develop improvement plans. If programs remain in lower tiers, they will be unable to recommend candidates for certification.
State Report Cards: Missouri 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: Missouri maintains full authority over teacher preparation program approval.
Recommendations for Missouri
As a result of Missouri's strong policies on reporting teacher preparation accountability data and holding preparation programs to meaningful standards based on data, no recommendations are provided.
State response to our analysis
Missouri stated that the 2016 Annual Performance Report for Educator Preparation Programs (APR-EPP) include the performance data by individual certification programs at approved preparation programs and that a certification program must have a minimum of 15 certification candidates who completed the program over the past five years to have a rating. Specifically, the state added that it measures the following standards: certification assessment pass rate, content GPA, performance during student teaching as reported by the cooperating teacher and program supervisor, survey results from first-year educators about their preparation, and survey results from the supervisors regarding first-year educators' preparation and effectiveness.
Updated: December 2017
Last word
For more information on Missouri's work to collect and report data on education preparation program completers, see Goal 1-C: Program Performance Measures.
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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