The final essay for Dilemmas of Equity and Excellence in American K-12 Education. At the end of 2016, the federal government changed its data collection policy on teacher preparation programs. The essay concerns the best practices states should use to ensure the success of the program.
Education is a topic that I have spent some time reading and learning about so I very excited to take the class, given the hype and demand for it. Despite the hype, I was underwhelmed by the course itself. Though the course was an introductory survey course, I felt that the course lacked rigor. At times the course was overly concerned with anecdotes and personal testimony. I ended up feeling that the course wanted to paint a highly stylized picture of education that I did not find compelling. While the readings were interesting and thought provoking, I did not feel that the rest of the course resonated with me.
When researching topics to write about, I first focused on teacher preparation. Unfortunately, I found it incredibly hard to find enough data to answer even some basic questions. As a result, I imagined that there might be a more general problem of data collection. When researching that, I ran across 79 FR 71819, the federal government’s new set of guidelines for data collection for teacher preparation programs. At first, I believed that this would be the end of my research on the problem, as this was the solution that I would have proposed myself. However, after reading some more about data collection, I found that the federal guidelines were not the only part of the solution. A significant burden is placed on the states in order to implement these guidelines. As a result, there is significant room for the states to either see to the success or failure of these guidelines, which I hope the essay lays out in a compelling fashion. Whether the solution I propose is fiscally feasible is an entirely different question with no real answer, as of the moment.
In your view, which challenge facing American K-12 schools should we address first? What reform offers a reasonable first step toward addressing this problem? Provide your rationale for choosing this reform. What are the implications of this reform strategy for achieving greater equity and excellence in American schools?
As of November 30, 2016, states are required, under U.S. Department of Education rule 79 FR 71819, to collect new data on teacher preparation programs (TPPs) and evaluate them. These guidelines are part of the federal government’s push to improve TPP quality and, by extension, teacher quality and student achievement. With better data on TPPs and their graduates, stakeholders can collectively make more informed decisions about the teaching pipeline. However, due to concerns about federal government overreach, these guidelines give states a significant amount of flexibility regarding the implementation. Based on existing need and the previous experiences of implementing other educational data programs, there are a number of steps that states should take to maximize the impact of these TPP data collection programs. In order to ensure that these data collection programs are comprehensive enough to provide the data needed to make informed decisions about problems of educational equity and excellence, states should exceed the guidelines by taking the following three actions: collect longitudinal data from novice teachers, prioritize data interoperability with other systems, and build supplementary tools to give stakeholders access to the data.
The Department of Education’s guidelines are part of a broader array of reforms designed to address problems of both equity and excellence. For this data driven reform, the problems of equity and excellence are measured in terms of student achievement, as opposed to other metrics such as identity or personality development. Though schools play a major part in adolescent development that should not be discounted, academic achievement is a major factor that contributes to long-term individual and societal success (“Critical Academic Indicators,” 2014) and there are clear problems of equity and excellence with respect to student achievement. Many other countries outperform the United States on a variety of benchmarks (Barshay, 2015). This problem of excellence was likened to a self-inflicted act of war by the National Commission on Excellence in Education (1983). In addition to this problem of excellence, there is still a problem of equity in the United States. Not only do poor and minority students perform worse than their peers, they often lack access to equivalent resources, both at home and at school (Jacob & Ludwig, 2008). In particular, these guidelines attempt to address problems with the teaching pipeline and teacher preparation because there are many compelling reasons to reform the teaching pipeline. In particular, teachers are often cited as the single largest in-school factor of student achievement (Hightower, et al., 2011). Furthermore, the problems of excellence and equity facing students are also seen in the teaching pipeline. In terms of excellence, American teachers do not rank particularly well on international benchmarks (Viadero, 2010), a result that mirrors the student benchmarks. In addition to this problem of excellence, there exists problems of equity. For instance, newer, inexperienced teachers are more likely to teach in poorer schools with more at-risk students (Prince, 2002) which are more likely to experience higher rates of teacher turnover (“Which Types of Schools,” 1995). In order to address these concerns and leverage the power of teachers, reforms have begun taking a look at TPPs because preliminary data suggests that teacher preparation impacts both teaching performance (Tennessee State Board of Education, 2015) and teacher turnover (Ingersoll, et al., 2014).
One roadblock to improving TPPs is a lack of data, which hinders education research and prevents informed policy making. There has been a demand for data on TPPs by a number of educational stakeholders. Benjamin Riley (as cited by Kreighbaum, 2016), the executive director of Deans for Impact, said, “We don’t have information we need about what’s working and what isn’t” with regards to TPPs. More generally, a GAO report found that “more than half the States were already using information on program graduates’ effectiveness in their teacher preparation program approval or renewal processes and at least 10 others planned to do so” (Government Accountability Office [GAO], 2015). Additionally, individual TPPs have expressed their need and use of such data. Furthermore, existing research on TPPs have been working with flawed methodologies (Hightower, et al., 2011). Previously, as part of Title II requirements, states were required to collect data on teachers and TPPs (GAO, 2015). However, there are a number of issues with the current reporting requirements. Not only did the GAO (2015) find that the data reported was not very useful to stakeholders, but also that states were failing to both collect and disseminate this information properly. In sum, there is a demand and use for higher quality teacher data in improving TPPs. The federal guidelines instruct states to collect data on novice teacher performance and use that data, along with other metrics, to rate TPPs and evaluate them on their effectiveness. In addition, the guidelines instruct states to determine procedures for improving TPP quality.
However, due to fears of government overreach, these guidelines are limited, leaving individual states a significant amount of flexibility in implementation. There are many existing data collection programs that states can look to and learn from. Many limitations with current data collection programs can be resolved early on in the implementation process if the states are proactive. There are three additional steps that this report recommends that states should take in order to maximize the benefit of these data collection programs. First, we discuss the need to collect additional longitudinal data, not just data from novice teachers in their first year of teaching. Second, we discuss the need to create interoperable data infrastructure. Finally, we discuss the need to invest in and build additional data infrastructure that promotes easy access by all stakeholders to the data collected.
The amount of data that the guidelines require states to collect is insufficient in understanding the teaching pipeline. Currently, according to the guidelines, “under the regulations, States may survey novice teachers and their employers for a number of consecutive years, even though they are only required to survey during the first year of teaching” (Teacher Preparation Issues, 2016). States should elect to survey novice teachers far longer than their first year of teaching. Without capturing more than a single year, it is impossible to detect trends in teacher improvement, which studies have shown occurs as teachers teach more (Papay, 2016). Furthermore, surveying only the first year produces inaccurate estimates of teacher retention. This is seen historically with Ingersoll’s old estimates and NCES reestimates (Di Carlo, 2015). Finally, it does not capture enough information about teacher preparation programs where graduates are required to teach for a set number of years. For instance, Teach For America has a two year service period and capturing data about the retention rate of those graduates would be useful for states in discussions about teacher shortages. Thus, while surveying teachers in their first year of teaching is useful, there are plenty of additional benefits of performing additional longitudinal tracking of those teachers beyond their first year of teaching.
As another measure to prevent federal overreach, the Department of Education lets states determine the exact form of the data they collect. The guidelines (2016) state that, “The final rules give states flexibility in determining relevant measures of student learning, as well as flexibility in weighing the various criteria to determine program ratings.” However, this is likely to lead to state systems with little data interoperability. For instance, one of the problems facing student data collection is the proliferation of different data systems and standards (New, 2016). There are many advantages to having states construct interoperable data systems. For instance, states may want to exchange teacher data with other states. The guidelines (2016) note that, “We encourage States to gather and use data on all program graduates regardless of the State to which they ultimately move.” Having interoperable data systems would greatly benefit states as they could exchange data. For instance, this may be especially important for Oklahoma, where many newly trained teachers leave to teach in Texas, which offers higher pay (Barth, et al., 2016). Easing the interstate data sharing process would reduce the overall cost for each state to collect comprehensive data. Furthermore, this data could be useful when evaluating interstate teacher certification, an issue that has been discussed for many years. Among the many lessons that can be learned from existing data systems, prioritizing data interoperability is an important lesson to follow.
Finally, while the guidelines do state that teacher preparation programs must display their ratings on their websites, the guidelines do not mandate that states build complementary infrastructure so that various stakeholders may have easy access to the data (Teacher Preparation Issues, 2016). Without additional tools to allow parents, school administrators, students, and researchers access to the data, these data collection programs lose much of their potential. Thus, while school administrators may want to make hiring decisions based on teacher preparation data, they may not if the information exists but is too much trouble to find. Similarly, students looking to enroll in TPPs may not know about or look for data on potential TPPs if there are no tools for them to use, which would be a detriment to these future teachers (Bettinger, 2012). For an example, the federal government has the College Scorecard. Finally, giving education researchers and civic hackers access to the data would encourage much more research and analysis than the state government can hope to do by itself (New, 2016). Not only would this research be extremely helpful to the state government, but it would also be helpful to the TPPs that would be looking to improve their programs.
While there are many limitations to these federal guidelines, there are many steps that individual states can take in order to maximize the impact that this data collection can have. They can learn lessons from existing data programs and concentrate on making this new data interoperable with other states and giving various stakeholders access to the data by building complementary infrastructure. Additionally, states may go above and beyond and fill in additional gaps in our knowledge by collecting more data than is required and focus on longitudinal data which would enhance the understanding of teaching in general.
Finally, we address some additional issues with and challenges to the federal guidelines. Since its inception, the rule has faced a number of critics, including those who are concerned about cost given the unfunded nature of this mandate. The additional proposed reforms detailed here will only increase the cost of the regulations. Additionally, a number of organizations, including the influential teachers unions have spoken out against the regulations, especially the tying of student achievement to teacher preparation program evaluations (Iasevoli, 2016). They argue that the data collected will be utilized to prioritize short term gains as opposed to long term reforms.
While these are serious concerns, the proposed guidelines and reforms are unlikely to pose the disastrous repercussions that opponents suggest. The first concern of these guidelines, which would only be amplified by these suggested additions is the issue of cost. Currently, the guidelines are an unfunded mandate that uses TEACH grants used as incentives. As a result, many commentators are concerned about the cost to states, schools, and teacher preparation programs to maintain these data collection programs. While the federal government believes that the total cost of the program not to cost the states more than 27 million dollars a year (Teacher Preparation Issues, 2016), the cost of the additional measures recommended here is hard to quantify. While one might look towards existing programs such as SLDS or Tennessee’s existing data collection program for rough cost estimates, it is difficult to both know the cost of these additional reforms and the monetary value of the benefits these reforms bring. A rough estimate puts an upper bound on cost at about 270 million dollars a year. Thus, while we are sympathetic to the concerns of these states and programs, we believe that these reforms will be ultimately be worth it monetarily to the states by allowing them to make more informed decisions about future spending on teacher preparation programs and in the improvement in student achievement. Additionally, by implementing these data collection programs with the future in mind, it may be possible for states to reduce the overall cost of these programs by integrating them with other data collection programs. As for the cost to schools and teacher preparation programs, this cost is a necessary investment in order to be accountable to their students.
In addition to the cost of these programs, another major point of contention is the tying of student performance and teacher “value add” back to teacher preparation evaluation. In fact, both national Teachers Unions have spoken out against this requirement and are working to get Congress to reverse these guidelines (Iasevoli, 2016). They cite a lack of research demonstrating that value add is an appropriate metric to judge teacher preparation quality (Hanushek, 2010). On the other hand, it is unreasonable to suggest that no actions are taken and that the status quo is acceptable. The guidelines advise states to consult with many stakeholders (Teacher Preparation Issues, 2016). In fact, the majority teacher preparation programs already participate in existing forms of data collection and evaluation to get CAEP accreditation (Feuer, 2013). Furthermore, based on the existing programs in Arizona and Tennessee, the disastrous effects have not yet been realized. Thus, while we share the concerns of these teachers unions about potential risks, the path to resolving these concerns is not to repeal these guidelines but to work together in ensuring that these programs reach their fullest potential.
Finally, there are concerns that the data being collected would be used maliciously or in unhelpful ways. The federal government also shares these concerns and thus has a taskforce to help states protect the data they collect and use the data properly and share the appropriate data with stakeholders. As such, these recommendations also recommend that the federal government invest more money in promoting good data sharing and storage practices to help resolve data concerns.
These new guidelines are a necessary first step towards addressing problems of equity and excellence in our public school system. Collecting improved data is a necessary step towards understanding the problems and evaluating the solutions. These guidelines will augment existing efforts by providing the necessary information to the involved stakeholders. However, an improved future is only possible if these guidelines are simply the beginning. The flexibility given to states also entrusts states with the responsibility to ensure that this program is not simply another reform in a long list of expensive and ineffective efforts. It is imperative to the future of education that states take the lead and create the necessary infrastructure. To that end, we have proposed three additional, tangible steps that states can take in order to bolster the chance of success of these programs. This will take a concerted effort and investment on the part of states, local schools, and teacher preparation programs to get right. We must take this window of opportunity to go above and beyond because it makes little sense to hope for educational excellence if the system is not prepared for it.
After reading this though, I was left with a question of the larger “why” behind this, which I would recommend exploring if you continue to think about this reform (which I hope you do!) Why is it important to track TPP data? You mention that quality teachers are crucial to student learning, and I agree, but what actual changes could/should be made as a result of this data? I thought your point about accessibility of this information to stakeholders was important, but for the information to be useful, these stakeholders need to know why the teachers from prep programs performed how they did. It is hard to make concrete decisions from the numbers alone. Is there a consistent weakness in behavior management among teachers from a particular TPP? Or pedagogy? Or planning? Or cultural responsiveness?
A few other notes - Your paper addresses that this reform affects excellence and equity, because teacher quality is important. However, the paper would have benefited from more explanation of how it will do this and to what degree. There is a through-line from teacher programs to excellent and equitable outcomes for students, but there are many steps in between, and these were not addressed.