Teacher Program Accountability

The purpose of this overview is to provide information about the methods of teacher preparation, the current state of research on teacher preparation, challenges, trends, questions, and recommendations for those working to prepare teachers for success in the classroom. 

The purpose of this overview is to provide an understanding of the research base on teacher induction programs, the impact on teacher practice and student achievement, and recommendations for teacher induction programs.

This paper highlights the importance of making the preparation of teachers as scientific as possible by basing instruction on scientific evidence and making teaching an applied science.

This paper considers issues confronted by National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) upon publishing their second edition of Teacher Prep Review, a comprehensive evaluation of programs that train new teachers. Changing the culture of teacher preparation has proven to be extremely challenging. The paper examines the deeply entrenched preparation program culture that has been resistant to changes proposed by policy makers, school systems, and the public. Arthur reviews the current state of teacher preparation, the efforts of NCTQ to raise the standards of preparation, and looks at what can be done in the future to continue the progress that has been already achieved.

This paper reviews current teacher preparation in the context of its failure to include well-established evidence-based practices and identifies strategies for improvement.

This paper: reviews research on beginning teacher induction programs, summarizing previous reviews of the topic; identifies various state- and local-level induction programs, analyzing best practices that exist today. 

This paper addresses only the use of data on the learning gains of graduates’ students to evaluate teacher preparation programs. This paper offer six core principles for strong design based on the models developed in three pioneering states: Louisiana, North Carolina and Tennessee.

This report presents PEDS findings from the 2011 and 2012 surveys, which reported on the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years. Some of the findings in this report counter common myths about higher education-based preparation programs. Others show that there is still much work to be done. 

This paper offer three strategies that will create the right conditions for states and institutions to reform poor-performing teacher preparation programs, improve preparation as a whole, and help keep more well-prepared teachers in the classroom after they graduate.

This issue is the second in a three-part series on quality teaching. The other two issues in the series focus on teacher recruitment and teachers' career structures and work environment. This issue examines research and expert consensus on teacher preparation,

State-level policy support for teacher induction programs can help teachers realize their full potential, keep them in the profession, promote greater student learning, and save money. Higher education institutions and school districts must work together to provide high-quality and well-designed induction programs. 

A 10-year comparison of graduates from 4- and 5-year teacher education programs at the same institution revealed significant differences between graduates of the two programs. Limitations of the study and alternative explanations for these differences are discussed.

This article describes the efforts of eleven universities and colleges to assess their teacher education programs based on broad, commonly held outcomes.

Using professional self-regulation in medicine as a model, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future has proposed sweeping changes in how teachers are trained and licensed, claiming that the reforms are well-grounded in research. This paper argues that the research literature offers far less support for the Commission's recommendations than is claimed. 

This paper proposes an incentive scheme for educators that links compensation to the ranks of their students within comparison sets. 

This article reviewed a number of comprehensive instructional-mentoring programs and identified three critical factors that seem to be making a positive difference. 

The author uses teachers’ ratings on the North Carolina Educator Evaluation System to determine whether teacher preparation programs (TPPs) are associated with the evaluation ratings of their initially prepared teachers. 

This study uses statewide completer survey data from North Carolina to assess whether perceptions of preparation quality and opportunities to learn during teacher preparation predict completers’ value-added estimates, evaluation ratings, and retention.

This policy brief lays out five components of a vision for the future and identifies opportunities to support teacher education reform. Examples of promising developments are also addressed that involve full-scale program redesign featuring collaboration across general and special education.

This paper assess the long-run implications of alternatively certified teachers. 

This paper describes the essential features of the personalized system of instruction (PSI). Results from outcome research examining the effectiveness of PSI-based courses relative to traditional methods provide unequivocal support for the superiority of PSI.

The purpose of this overview is to provide information about the methods of teacher preparation, the current state of research on teacher preparation, challenges, trends, questions, and recommendations for those working to prepare teachers for success in the classroom. 

The purpose of this overview is to provide an understanding of the research base on teacher induction programs, the impact on teacher practice and student achievement, and recommendations for teacher induction programs.

This chapter from "Studying Teacher Education"  focus on the research procedures and the impact claims of researchers who study the complex phenomenon commonly labeled as a methods course or a teacher-
education-related field experience in a school or community. 

This brief explores research that points to the opportunities and the challenges that evaluating teacher preparation programs differently presents.

This article outlines the challenges to creating productive clinical experiences for prospective teachers, and identifies strategies that have been found successful in confronting these challenges

New data and analysis from the National Council on Teacher Quality finds significant progress on the science of reading instruction in teacher preparation. 

This research examines meta-analyses on the topic to identify those practices that predictably lead to effective classroom instruction. The paper examines practices such as teacher degrees, preparation models, methods of course delivery, technology-based instruction, cooperative learning practices, instruction methods, field experience, field experience supervision, and induction practices.

This report describe teacher educators about their perspectives on the pressing questions surrounding teacher education and school reform today. Results show that education professors hold divided views on many issues. 

This study employed a randomized experiment to examine differences in teacher and student learning from professional development (PD) in two modalities: online and face-to-face. 

Teaching methods and field experience courses that focus on teaching make up only a small fraction of the postsecondary coursework required for teachers, especially for prospective secondary teachers. 

A review of the literature demonstrates that schools are frequently called upon to improve by developing high levels of teacher collaboration. At the same time, there is a paucity of research investigating the extent to which teachers’ collaborative school improvement practices are related to student achievement.

The goal of this paper was to document and analyze the research on the connection between teachers' preparation to teach special education students, their instructional practices once in the classroom, and their students' eventual learning achievement 

This paper provides the first empirical examination of National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) ratings,  beginning with a descriptive overview of the ratings and documentation of how they evolved from 2013-2016, both in aggregate and for programs with different characteristics.

This study examines teacher preparation programs and how they have ineffectively been preparing teachers in critical areas necessary for effective teaching. The paper establishes ratings of key standards for 608 teacher preparation programs.

This report examines teacher preparation in classroom management. It surveyed over 100 elementary and secondary, graduate and undergraduate programs.

Learning communities serve a variety of education constituencies, beginning with grade-level or subject-matter teams, vertical-grade or subject-band teams, school leadership teams, cadres of principals, or teams of employees in district offices.

This Issue Paper presents a brief review of the legal and policy foundations and best professional practices for inclusive services. It also provides a discussion of key components of inclusive services that should be incorporated in teacher preparation at the preservice and inservice levels. 

The most successful teacher induction programs reported here include opportunities for experts and neophytes to learn together in a supportive environment promoting time for collaboration, reflection and acculturation into the profession of teaching. 

This article explores the role and contribution of narrative interviews in educational research, by studying its application as data collecting technique in two different case studies: narrative interviews with directors of an academic college of education and with preschool teachers in Israel. The paper presents two case studies in which the narrative interview was used as a key methodological tool reflecting and describing the historical, cultural and educational contexts in which the subjects act, thus enabling a better understanding of the meaning of their behavior. 

This paper describes some implication of research on learning to teach to the design of induction and mentoring programs. 

This paper is based on an analysis of seven alternative certification programs to determine the characteristics of effective programs. Overall, findings suggest that an effective alternative certification program places candidates in schools with strong leadership, a collegial atmosphere, and adequate materials. 

This study examines whether such supports have a positive effect on the retention of beginning teachers. The study also focuses on different types and components of induction, including mentoring programs, collective' group activities, and the provision of extra resources and reduced workloads. 

In recent years, most states have constructed elaborate accountability systems using school-level test scores. We evaluate the implications for school accountability systems. For instance, rewards or sanctions for schools with scores at either extreme primarily affect small schools and provide weak incentives to large ones.

The authors use six years of data on student test performance to evaluate the effectiveness of certified, uncertified, and alternatively certified teachers in the New York City public schools. This study also evaluates turnover among teachers with different certification status and the impact on student achievement of hiring teachers with predictably high turnover

This paper highlights the importance of making the preparation of teachers as scientific as possible by basing instruction on scientific evidence and making teaching an applied science.

This paper presents case study research that explores the dynamics and experience offered for a professor and learners participating in a hybrid-modeled classroom in teacher education. 

This paper offers a sobering view of teacher preparation programs. It uses a statewide longitudinal dataset from Missouri to examine the extent to which teachers who are prepared by different programs differ in effectiveness.

The Teacher Education Committee at Northwestern Oklahoma State University approved the development of a competency-based teacher education program. A subcommittee identified and wrote professional education competencies which students should master prior to program completion.

This report is based on efforts by the National Center for Education Statistics to collect data on teacher preparation and qualifications using a nationally representative survey of full-time public school teachers whose main teaching assignment is in English/language arts, social studies/social sciences, foreign language, mathematics, or science (or who teach a self-contained classroom).

This paper examines the history and issues that are fundamental to the clash between those promoting an evidence-based approach to education and those favoring a constructivist approach to learning.

This study investigated the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards'(NBPTS)
assessment process in order to identify, quantify, and substantiate learning outcomes from
the participants.

This paper presents an early field-based course and applied teaching project to examine teaching practices and pupil outcomes.

This report describes how the seven Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Central states (Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming) evaluate their teacher preparation programs and the changes they are making to improve their approaches to evaluation.

National Center for Education Statistics. U.S. Department of Education presents the data of public school teachers who held a postbaccalaureate degree, public school teachers who held the certificate, and the year of experience.

This study follows 305 preservice teachers (PSTs) who student taught in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) in 2014-15 and were subsequently hired in CPS in 2015-16. 

The authors use data from a four-year experiment in which teachers and students were randomly assigned to classes to estimate teacher effects on student achievement. Teacher effects are estimated as between-teacher (but within-school) variance components of achievement status and residualized achievement gains.

This policy report provides a look at the decline in the enrollment of American teacher preparation programs, along with potential consequences for schools and the student they serve. 

Increasingly, states and teacher education programs are establishing minimum requirements for cooperating teachers’ (CTs’) years of experience or tenure. Undergirding these policies is an assumption that to effectively mentor preservice teachers (PSTs), CTs must themselves be instructional effective. The authors test this assumption using statewide administrative data on nearly 2,900 PSTs mentored by over 3,200 CTs.

This paper is part of a bigger research project and focuses on issues related to soft skills and teaching professional training. The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent of soft skills that has been integrated in teaching professional training from the novice teachers’ perspectives.

The authors recommend a shift in focus for TFA from a program of mixed impact to one that makes measureable changes in the quality of education in America. Recommendations for policymakers and districts are provided.

A year-long researcher-teacher professional development group with a next-year followup was conducted with seven general education teachers from two elementary schools in a large urban school district in the southeastern United States. The components of successful professional development programs are discussed and implications for teacher education are offered. 

This report examines research on teacher certification, reviewing every published study or paper, and many unpublished dissertations, cited by prominent advocates of teacher certification.

Within Our Grasp: Achieving Higher Admissions Standards in Teacher Prep is the tenth annual publication in the State Teacher Policy Yearbook report series released by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ). This report focuses on teacher preparation program compliance with admissions policies required at the state level

Small class size is often used as an indicator of quality in higher education, and some research suggests that instructors in smaller classes more often use activities that are learner-centered and that involve physical and mental activity on the part of learners, such as group work, simulations, and case studies. However, we have little information on how instructors change their pedagogical practice when they teach in large- versus small-class settings.

This policy brief surveys historical and contemporary trends in teacher preparation, and explores what is known about the quality of five of the most prominent independent teacher education programs in the U.S., including their impact on teacher quality and student learning. The author's analysis demonstrates that claims regarding the success of such programs are not substantiated by peer-reviewed research and program evaluations.