Developing Collaborative Capacity for Improving Teacher Education

• In Event: 16.033 - After the Fire Alarm: How Value-Added Analyses of Teacher Preparation Programs May Contribute to Program Improvement

Abstract

Over the past decade, researchers, practitioners and policymakers in Washington state have engaged in a number of collaborative efforts to identify and respond to key policy questions concerned with improving teacher education. Initial efforts began with a series of studies examining the characteristics of the teacher workforce, including teacher demographics, retention, mobility and how the dynamics of teacher workforce supply and demand varied by region of the state and by subject matter. One of the outcomes of these studies was the finding that novice teachers in Washington state leave teaching positions in the state at about half the rate commonly believed to be the case. At the same time, some legislative effort was focused on creating dialogue between school districts and teacher education institutions regarding how to best meet the specific regional and local teacher labor market needs. These investigations prompted additional conversations among teacher education institutions, researchers, and state agencies regarding how to best use data to inform the design of teacher education program improvements and supports.

Through a joint partnership with the state’s professional association of teacher education institutions, and with support from philanthropic sources, researchers provided an analysis of the graduation, hiring and retention rates of teacher education candidates from 18 of the state’s teacher education institutions. A related study examined employment and retention patterns for graduates of alternative route teacher education programs. This data provided useful feedback to the institutions regarding the employment locations and patterns of its graduates. During this same time period, state longitudinal data capacity began to improve, providing more convenient access to school and classroom-level data and allowing for the design of more specific forms of inquiry, including the use of value-added models. This prompted efforts by a number of researchers, with support from a combination of state, nonprofit and philanthropic sources, to use available state data to conduct analyses of the impact that graduates from teacher education institutions had on student learning, using a variety value-added methodological designs. Our discussion of these collaborative efforts details the importance of building capacity over time across stakeholders and includes a focus on the opportunities, challenges and tensions that emerge when using state longitudinal data for purposes of accountability and improvement in teacher education, particularly when using value-added methodologies.

Author

• Margaret L. Plecki, University of Washington