The Center for American Progress released a report last week focused on the 12 first-round Race to the Top (RTT) winners’ progress on teacher preparation and accountability systems. RTT winners are required to meet several goals, such as linking student achievement and growth data to their teachers; tie this information into teacher prep programs; publicly report the data on program effectiveness for each teacher prep program in the state; and expand teacher education programs/credentialing options that are successful and preparing effective teachers.
The paper seeks to describe the specific accomplishments or shortfalls of each state (Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and the District of Columbia), and make policy recommendations for both the states and the US Department of Education (as well as anyone else interested in teacher quality).
Key findings of the report are:
1. “Persistence in teaching” by program grads will be publicly disclosed by five of the 12 winners; Massachusetts and New York have indicated they will change their teacher-education accountability regulations and use programwide persistence rates for accountability.
2. Half of the winners will use job placement data of teacher prep programs as part of their public disclosures on program performance. Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island plan to use job placement as an accountability measure.
3. Four winners will report the percentage of each prep program’s grads who attain advanced licensure. New York will prohibit ineffective teachers (as measured by student outcomes) from advanced licensure; and Rhode Island will use the rate at which program grads reach the next licensure step as an accountability measure.
4. All 12 winners will publicly report student achievement outcomes as a measure of teaching effectiveness of program grads. Only DC, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island will use teacher impact on student achievement for program accountability.
The report has several policy recommendations for both states and the federal government that will help the 12 winners meet their grant obligations. These include a recommendation that the federal government and interested foundations should support “an organized program of technical assistance to enable the states to meet their commitments.” This should include cross-state collaboration in data-system development, teacher effectiveness research, and application of student achievement and growth measures that can be used to fairly and consistently evaluate teacher prep programs across the country.
Additionally, the federal government, the National Governors Association, and education reform groups should “support state and cross-state efforts to pilot the full set of accountability indicators that the Center for American Progress recommended in its paper, ‘Measuring What Matters.’” Third, RTT promises should be gauged “against actual performance over the next few years, particularly since implementation of these initiatives is being assigned to state departments of education—agencies not known for their commitment to high-quality education reform.”
Interested parties in improving teacher-prep quality should also “double down on efforts to develop a much broader array of high-quality student assessment instruments…the only solution…is to follow the lead of professions such as medicine, nursing, accountancy and engineering. Every state employs the same system of accountability indicators in these professions.”
To read the full report, please visit http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/01/teacher_preparation.html
