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22–606 PDF 2016

S. HRG. 113–828 

TEACHER PREPARATION: ENSURING A QUALITY 

TEACHER IN EVERY CLASSROOM 

HEARING 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, 

LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

ON

EXAMINING TEACHER PREPARATION, FOCUSING ON ENSURING 

A QUALITY TEACHER IN EVERY CLASSROOM 

MARCH 25, 2014 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ 

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

TOM HARKIN, Iowa, Chairman 

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

BERNARD SANDERS (I), Vermont 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska 

MARK KIRK, Illinois 

TIM SCOTT, South Carolina 

DEREK MILLER, Staff Director 

LAUREN MCFERRAN, Deputy Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

DAVID P. CLEARY, Republican Staff Director 

(II) 

C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS 

TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2014 

Page 

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Harkin, Hon. Tom, Chairman, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 

Pensions, opening statement ............................................................................... 1 

Alexander, Hon. Lamar, a U.S. Senator from the State of Tennessee, opening 

statement .............................................................................................................. 2 

Warren, Hon. Elizabeth, a U.S. Senator from the State of Massachusetts ........ 48 

Isakson, Hon. Johnny, a U.S. Senator from the State of Georgia ....................... 50 

Bennet, Hon. Michael F., a U.S. Senator from the State of Colorado ................. 51 

Murphy, Hon. Christopher S., a U.S. Senator from the State of Connecticut .... 54 

WITNESSES

Crowe, Edward, Senior Advisor of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship 

Foundation, Princeton, NJ .................................................................................. 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 6 

Brabeck, Mary, Ph.D., Gale and Ira Drukier Dean and Professor of Applied 

Psychology, New York University, New York, NY ............................................ 12 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 14 

Koerner, Mari, Ph.D., Professor and Dean of the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers 

College, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ .................................................. 19 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 21 

Daly, Timothy, President of the New Teacher Project, Brooklyn, NY ................ 31 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 34 

Burns, Jeanne M., Ph.D., Associate Commissioner of Teacher and Leadership 

Initiatives, Louisiana Board of Regents, Baton Rouge, LA .............................. 38 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 40 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.: 

Chris Stephenson, Executive Director, Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) ............................................................................................... 62 

Letter from Edward Crowe .............................................................................. 63 

Response by Edward Crowe to questions of: 

Senator Murray ......................................................................................... 67 

Senator Bennet .......................................................................................... 67 

Senator Warren ......................................................................................... 68 

Response by Mari Koerner, Ph.D. to questins of: 

Senator Harkin .......................................................................................... 69 

Senator Bennet .......................................................................................... 69 

Senator Warren ......................................................................................... 73 

Response by Timothy Daly to questions of: 

Senator Bennet .......................................................................................... 74 

Senator Murray ......................................................................................... 75 

Senator Warren ......................................................................................... 76 

(III) 

(1) 

TEACHER PREPARATION: ENSURING A 

QUALITY TEACHER IN EVERY CLASSROOM 

TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2014 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:33 p.m., in room 

SD–430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Tom Harkin, chairman of the committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Harkin, Bennet, Murphy, Warren, Alexander, 

and Isakson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARKIN

The CHAIRMAN. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, 

Labor, and Pensions will come to order. This is the seventh in a 

series of hearings to inform this committee’s reauthorization of the 

Higher Education Act. The focus of today’s hearing, teacher preparation, is profoundly important for all students, from the very 

youngest to our adult students. 

Study after study shows that teacher quality is the decisive inschool factor in boosting student achievement. Today, we have too 

few students who have access to highly effective teachers, teachers 

who can help ensure that our low-income students get the highquality education that their higher income peers get. 

Just last week, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for 

Civil Rights released data showing that students of color are much 

more likely to attend schools where teachers have not met all State 

licensing requirements. In order to achieve greater equity in our 

schools, we must ensure that every student has access to highly effective teachers. 

The Higher Education Act plays a critical role in teacher training 

by providing funding to institutions of higher education, in partnership with K–12 districts, to reform and strengthen their teacher 

prep programs. This is a relatively small Federal program. But I 

hope we will hear today how it can be best leveraged to bring about 

systemic change in our teacher prep programs. 

The Higher Education Act requires all institutions of higher education, as well as States, to report certain information about their 

teacher preparation programs. I hope we can hear about how the 

existing reporting requirements can be streamlined and revised to 

be less burdensome, more focused on outcomes, and more helpful 

to teacher preparation programs. 

2 

Another area of concern that we hear about is the lack of communication in many places between institutions of higher education and the K–12 school districts that they serve. Institutions of 

higher education do not necessarily understand the realities teachers will face in the classroom, and K–12 districts may not be effectively communicating their needs to the institutions that train 

their teachers. 

In certain areas of the country, we also hear about institutions 

of higher education preparing too many elementary teachers to the 

exclusion of teachers in shortage areas, including special education 

teachers, English language learner teachers, early childhood specialists, and STEM teachers. 

In Part D of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the 

Federal Government dedicates funds for the preparation of special 

education teachers, early interventionists, related services personnel, and leaders in the field. We should continue to ensure that 

both of these funds are available and that they are resulting in effective special education teachers. 

Finally, the HEA requires States to designate teacher preparation programs as low performing, when appropriate, and to provide 

certain interventions for those programs. However, as of 2013, 24 

States, as well as the District of Columbia, have never identified 

even a single low performing program. 

One might be inclined to read this and think that our teacher 

prep programs are doing a great job. Unfortunately, in many cases, 

teachers report feeling unprepared for the realities of the classroom, and school principals and administrators report that many 

new teachers are not ready to teach. Now is the time to take stock 

of where our teacher preparation programs are doing a good job, 

where they are coming up short, and how we can support efforts 

to strengthen these programs. 

With that, I invite Senator Alexander. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ALEXANDER

Senator ALEXANDER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I welcome our witnesses, and I look forward to this. 

I want to congratulate Senator Harkin and his staff and our staff 

for coming up with some terrific hearing subjects and witnesses. 

And lest you think we’re not listening, at some of our previous 

hearings, we’ve listened very carefully and are busy working together, as we often do in this committee across party lines, to try 

to take your advice, because what we found is that this is the 

eighth, I think, reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, and 

over time, things just stack up. 

I’ll be especially looking forward to your suggestions about what 

we would do if we were starting from scratch. We might not be able 

to do that as a practical way in this case, but on the other hand, 

sometimes that is a better way to do it. What would our objectives 

be? This isn’t really an ideological subject in that sense. It’s just 

a matter of good management and weeding the garden before we 

go ahead. So I thank the chairman for this. 

I always like the statement attributed to Professor Coleman of 

the University of Chicago that schools are for the purpose of doing 

what parents don’t do as well, which leaves lots of room for difVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:08 Nov 22, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\DOCS\22606.TXT DENISE
3 

ferent kinds of schools, because we have many different kinds of 

home settings for children. All of us would like to find a better parents law if we could think of one, but I’ve never figured one out 

except to give lower income parents more of the same choices of 

schools that wealthier parents have. 

But the country, over the last 30 years, has focused on the obvious, which is, after the parent, the teacher is the most important 

person in the child’s life, and what can we do to create an environment in which the best teachers can succeed. Thirty years ago, I 

was a young Governor of Tennessee, trying to help our State become the first State to pay teachers more for teaching well, and 

that meant trying to define well, which seems obvious until you 

start trying to do it. 

But I figured the obvious ones to help me understand that, so we 

could literally pay teachers more for their excellence, were the colleges of education. Yet when I went to the colleges of education, 

they said, ‘‘Oh, you can’t do that. It’s not possible to tell the difference between a teacher who teaches better than others.’’ 

And I said, 

‘‘That’s ridiculous, because you do it in your own college, or 

you allegedly do it, and certainly the universities do it. And I’m 

not saying it’s easy, but surely colleges of education can provide suggestions about how to identify in a fair way excellence 

in teaching. You should surely be able to do that better than 

a bunch of politicians who are here for a temporary period of 

time.’’ 

But in the end, we had to do it ourselves. 

We got advice from a lot of teachers, and, eventually, 10,000 

teachers voluntarily went up a career ladder and were paid more. 

But that was just one dissatisfaction I had with the colleges of education at the time. 

And at about that same time, there were other criticisms about 

colleges not being selective enough, providing minimal classroom 

experience, not enough core content learning as teachers were prepared. And as a result, we’ve seen a variety of efforts to try to address that. 

One is the alternative certification programs, which I’m sure 

we’ll hear about today—as many as 40 percent of new hires—as 

many States moved ahead to give other people new routes to go 

into teaching. The accountability standards that virtually every 

State has adopted made a difference. 

The teacher evaluation efforts have not been as successful as I 

would have hoped. But where they were, colleges of education have 

cooperated now in helping States identify fair ways to reward outstanding teaching. And professional development, which used to be 

a huge waste of time, and may still be in many places, has gotten 

some real scrutiny. 

I welcome this discussion today and look forward to the various 

proposals. I want to acknowledge that the Council for Accreditation 

of Educator Preparation, CAEP, has new accrediting standards 

over the last few years. I’d like to know what you think of those. 

I appreciate the role that the Dean of Vanderbilt’s Peabody School 

has played in this whole area. 

4 

I like the fact that our State, through Democratic and Republican 

Governors in Tennessee, has continued to address this subject and 

is even evaluating graduates of our teacher preparation programs 

for 4 or 5 years after they get out to see whether their students 

are achieving what needs to be done. And as Senator Harkin said, 

I would especially like to review the requirements we impose from 

Washington on teacher colleges today and make sure they’re current and that they’re useful and that they just haven’t stacked up 

over the last 30 or 40 years. 

When we took a look at the application for Federal financial aid 

for grants and loans, we found a lot of unnecessary questions and 

answers that we can probably eliminate and save a lot of time and 

money that can be used to help educate students. 

I hope you’ll identify as specifically as possible what your recommendations for us are for the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, what the Federal Government can do to create a better 

environment for teacher colleges, and what we should not be doing. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Alexander. 

We have a distinguished panel today, and I will introduce all of 

you right now, and then we’ll start from my left and go to the right 

for your statements. I’ll just say at the outset that all of your statements, which I’ve read over, will be made a part of the record in 

their entirety, and I’ll ask you to sum it up in 5 minutes or so. 

We’ll just go through, and then we’ll open it up for discussion. 

First, we have Dr. Edward Crowe, a consultant on teacher quality and K through 16 policy issues for several organizations. Dr. 

Crowe was the first director of the title II Teacher Quality Enhancement Program for the U.S. Department of Education and has 

extensive knowledge of the title II program. He is currently a Senior Advisor for the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and has served as a consultant to the Academy for Educational 

Development and the Carnegie Corporation of New York on the 

Teachers for a New Era program. 

Dr. Mary Brabeck is a professor of applied psychology at New 

York University. She is currently the elected chair of the board of 

directors of the Council on Accreditation of Educator Preparation— 

that’s CAEP, as Senator Alexander mentioned—and will speak to 

CAEP accreditation issues. 

Next is Dr. Mari Koerner, who serves as Professor and Dean of 

the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. 

ASU currently has one of the largest title II grants in the Nation, 

and Dean Koerner will speak to ASU’s grant implementation. 

ASU’s education graduate programs have been ranked among the 

best by U.S. News and World Report for 12 consecutive years. Dr. 

Koerner serves on the Advisory Board for Teach for America, the 

Advisory Council for Rodel Charitable Foundation, and on the 

board of directors for Arizona Business and Education Coalition. 

And then we have Mr. Daly. Mr. Tim Daly is the president of 

The New Teacher Project and will speak to alternative certification 

issues. Under Tim’s tenure as president, TNTP has become a leading source of innovative research and a respected independent voice 

on teacher quality issues. 

5 

Last, we have Dr. Jeanne Burns, currently the Associate Commissioner of Teacher Education Initiatives for the Louisiana Office 

of the Governor and the Board of Regents and will speak to Louisiana’s teacher prep program reforms. She is also co-director of the 

Blue Ribbon Commission for Educational Excellence. She served as 

principal investigator for a $3.2 million Title II Teacher Quality 

State Enhancement Grant awarded to the Office of the Governor 

in 2000–2005 which supported the redesign of all teacher prep programs in Louisiana. 

Again, welcome. You’re all very distinguished. Thank you for 

being here and for your input into this process. 

We’ll start with Dr. Crowe. If you could just sum up your statement in about 5 minutes or so, then we’ll just kind of move down 

the line. 

STATEMENT OF EDWARD CROWE, SENIOR ADVISOR OF THE 

WOODROW WILSON NATIONAL FELLOWSHIP FOUNDATION, 

PRINCETON, NJ 

Mr. CROWE. Thank you, Senator Harkin, Senator Alexander, and 

members of the committee, for the opportunity to participate in 

this hearing. My name is Ed Crowe. 

My remarks today will address the current preparation program 

accountability standards and reporting under title II; how the 

Teacher Quality Partnership grants program contributes to 

progress and program improvement; and ways to improve title II 

of the HEA that can help States, institutions of higher education, 

and other stakeholders to strengthen the quality of teacher preparation in the United States. I also will suggest ways of reducing the 

reporting burden that title II now imposes. 

So I think a good place to start this conversation is with K–12 

student achievement in the country. According to the latest NAEP 

results, two-thirds of our fourth graders are not proficient in reading, 58 percent of those fourth graders are not proficient in mathematics, and 64 percent of U.S. eighth graders are not proficient in 

either math or reading, according to NAEP. 

Despite those student learning outcomes, the latest national title 

II report card shows that 99 percent of all teacher candidates in 

the country pass all of their teacher tests, 98 percent of them pass 

all of their professional knowledge tests, and 96 percent pass all of 

their academic content tests. This disconnect, I think, between the 

performance of our young people in core subject areas and the performance of their teachers on tests required for licensure is one of 

the basic failures of the current title II accountability requirements 

for teacher education. 

Another problem with the current HEA reporting and accountability system, as the chairman noted, is that few States make any 

effort to flag and report weak programs as low performing or at 

risk of becoming low performing. For the most recent reporting 

year, 39 States did not classify even one program as low performing. In fact, the majority of States have never found a program 

to be either low performing or at risk, again, despite the K–12 student performance issues I mentioned earlier. 

For those States that do take this step, only 38 programs in the 

country were flagged as low performing in 2011. That represents 

6 

1.8 percent of the 2,100 teacher education programs across the 

country. 

So if programs that prepare our teachers are not held accountable in a meaningful way for the inability of their graduates to 

teach students to do mathematics and learn to read, it’s hard to see 

how the country can help these students to become productive and 

successful members of society. Title II of the HEA can help us address these challenges by reducing the current reporting burden on 

programs in States so that we focus on essential pieces of data that 

will help programs to improve and help States to monitor program 

quality more effectively. 

What’s collected now is not providing useful information. It’s also 

burdensome to institutions and to States, few of which do anything 

with the information except report what they’re required to report 

under the current statute. 

A better title II reporting system would concentrate on a relative 

handful of key items telling us how all programs are doing at producing new teachers with the knowledge and skills to address our 

daunting achievement challenges. A small number of core indicators would also be useful information for the rest of us, for the public, for the programs, and for the States. Limited and targeted reporting is much more likely to foster program improvement and 

help the States deal with weak providers. 

States are currently required to determine whether programs 

under their jurisdiction are low performing or at risk of low performance. As I noted, most States have never done that. Fewer 

than 2 percent of programs ever receive this designation. A big step 

toward improvement is that States should use a small number of 

transparent and important program quality measures to decide 

whether preparation programs under their jurisdiction are at risk 

or low performing. 

And because so many new teachers are trained in one State but 

employed as teachers in a different State—19 percent of all new 

teachers in the country—it makes sense for every State to use the 

same set of measures for preparation program oversight so that 

schools and students, no matter where they are, will have equal access to the best new teachers that our country can give them. We 

already do this in nursing, engineering, medicine, and other fields, 

where States have joined together in a voluntary way to oversee 

those professions. 

Finally, members of the committee, if I can leave you with one 

thought as you work on this reauthorization, please help us 

through HEA to expect more from preparation programs and from 

States so our children can learn and grow to their full potential. 

Thank you so much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Crowe follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF EDWARD CROWE

SUMMARY

Thank you Senator Harkin, Senator Alexander, and members of the committee for 

the opportunity to participate in this hearing. 

My name is Edward Crowe and my remarks today will address: (1) current preparation program accountability standards and reporting under Title II of the HEA, 

(2) how the Teacher Quality Partnership grants program contributes to program improvement across the country, and (3) ways to improve Title II of the HEA that can 

7 

help States, institutions of higher education, and other stakeholders to strengthen 

the quality of teacher preparation in the United States. My comments will also suggest how to reduce the reporting burden of title II. 

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT, PROGRAM QUALITY, AND PROGRAM ACCOUNTABILITY

Two-thirds of all fourth graders in the United States are not proficient in reading. 

In mathematics, 58 percent of all U.S. fourth graders are not proficient according 

to the same 2013 test results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress 

(NAEP). 

For eighth-grade students, 64 percent were not proficient in reading. The same 

proportion of our eighth graders was not proficient in mathematics. 

Despite these student learning outcomes, the latest title II report card indicates 

that 99 percent of all teacher candidates in the country passed their basic skills 

tests; 98 percent passed all of their professional knowledge tests; and 96 percent 

passed their academic content tests. 

This disconnect between the performance of our young people in core subject areas 

and the performance of their teachers on tests required for licensure and certification is one of the basic failures of the current title II accountability requirements 

for teacher preparation programs. 

Another problem with the current Title II HEA reporting and accountability system is that few States make any effort to flag and report weak programs as low 

performing. 

For the most recent reporting year, 39 States did not classify even one teacher 

preparation program as low performing or at risk of low performance. In fact, 35 

States have never found a program to be low performing or at risk, despite the K– 

12 student performance issues shown in the tables above. For those who do, 38 programs were cited as low performing or at risk in 2011. This represents 1.8 percent 

of the 2,124 preparation programs in the country. 

If programs that prepare our Nation’s teachers are not held accountable in a 

meaningful way for the inability of their graduates to teach K–12 students to do 

mathematics and learn to read, it is hard to see how the country can help these 

students to become productive and successful members of our society. 

TEACHER QUALITY PARTNERSHIP GRANTS

In recent years, the Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) program funded two 

rounds of awards. In fiscal year 2009, 28 grants were made for a total of $43 million. In fiscal year 2010, the U.S. Department of Education awarded 12 grants totaling $100 million. The statutory focus areas for these grants include: improving student achievement, improvements to the quality of prospective and new teachers by 

strengthening both teacher preparation and professional development; holding preparation programs accountable for training high quality teachers; and recruiting 

highly qualified prospective teachers into the profession. 

These awards have been made to universities, to a State department of education, 

to a national STEM teaching initiative, and to three school districts. Many of the 

projects have multiple university and local LEA partners. Almost half of the TQP 

grants support ‘‘residency’’ programs that place teacher candidates in extended 

learning experiences in school settings for as long as a full year. 

Through the work of these 40 grantees and their local partners, the TQP program 

is being used for teacher preparation program changes. University faculty and others involved in these 40 TQP grants are making good faith efforts to improve the 

preparation and support of teacher candidates who enroll in their programs. 

However, it is hard to see much impact on teacher preparation in the United 

States from the program itself or from these individual efforts. There are two main 

reasons for this limited impact: 

• The wide range of TQP objectives and implementation strategies dilutes the 

overall ability of the grant program to foster promising strategies and test their effectiveness in multiple settings. 

• There is no common evaluation framework for the non-residency grant projects, 

a reflection of how different they are from one another. 

Both problems could be remedied by a competitive program that targets funding 

for teacher preparation program redesigns that address a small number of topics, 

support grantees in several locations who do the same kind of work (e.g., like multisite trials), and evaluate the projects using the same set of measures. 

8 

A RESOURCE TO STRENGTHEN PREPARATION PROGRAM QUALITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

A good starting point to improve the impact of title II on program quality and 

accountability is to reduce the reporting burden on States and programs imposed 

by the existing statute and regulations. Too many current reporting elements are 

not central to understanding the preparation, production, and performance of strong 

teachers. Too little attention is given to reporting information about key program 

outputs and outcomes that affect the learning performance of K–12 students. 

Collecting purely descriptive information gives States, program leaders, and the 

public few analytical tools to understand program impact on the production and 

classroom success of well-prepared new teachers. Title II reporting should focus on 

a small set of key items: 

• The academic strength of admitted students. 

• Their demographic characteristics. 

• Their preparation in high need subject areas. 

• Whether they teach in high need schools and subjects. 

• Whether they stay in teaching. 

• The impact graduates have on student learning. 

• Assessments of their classroom teaching skills. 

• And feedback about their programs from the graduates and their employers. 

While reporting some of this information may be a heavy lift for some programs 

without external support in data collection and analysis, numerous recent efforts at 

State and other levels provide important resources for programs and States. In addition, Section 208 of the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA), passed by the 

Congress in 2008, authorized State agencies to share ‘‘any and all pertinent education-related information’’ with teacher preparation programs that ‘‘may enable the 

teacher preparation program to evaluate the effectiveness of the program’s graduates or the program itself.’’ 

INCENTIVES FOR STATES TO USE THE SAME INDICATORS AND ACCOUNTABILITY TOOLS

Engineering, accountancy, nursing, and medicine are among the professions that 

have uniform State accountability standards for programs and graduates. In each 

case, the profession worked closely with States to develop a single set of policies 

that apply everywhere and they were adopted by each State under its own authority. These fields—including nursing with over 1,200 program providers—also use the 

same licensing tests and passing scores for graduates in every State. 

There are good reasons for thinking that this voluntary approach by these professions and the States can make a difference for teacher preparation program quality. 

A significant number of newly licensed teachers in the United States complete a 

preparation program in one State and obtain their initial license in another jurisdiction. Nationwide, 19 percent of all initial State credentials are issued to teachers 

prepared in another State. For 10 States, over 40 percent of new teachers in each 

of these States are trained elsewhere and 22 States have reported that at least 20 

percent of new teachers were prepared outside their State. One set of common 

standards would ensure that quality means the same thing no matter where the 

program is located or where the graduate is employed. 

Reports on K–12 learning outcomes show that we must do much more to ensure 

a quality teacher in every classroom. Title II of the HEA can be an effective vehicle 

for this goal. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I would be happy 

to respond to your questions. 

Thank you Senator Harkin, Senator Alexander, and members of the committee for 

the opportunity to participate in this hearing. 

Title II of the Higher Education Act, last amended in 2008, provides for teacher 

preparation program accountability through program and State reporting. The statute also requires States to set criteria for designating low performing or at-risk 

preparation programs under their jurisdiction, and to report whether they have 

found any programs to be low performing or at risk of being low performing. Accountability functions of the statute are met through public disclosure of program 

information and listing by the State as low performing or at risk. 

Through Title II of the HEA, the U.S. Department of Education also makes grants 

to improve teacher preparation program quality. These awards take place through 

the Teacher Quality Partnership Program; multi-year grants were made most recently in fiscal year 2009 and in fiscal year 2010. 

9 

My remarks will address: (1) current preparation program accountability standards and reporting under Title II of the HEA, (2) how the Teacher Quality Partnership grants program contributes to program improvement across the country, and 

(3) ways to improve Title II of the HEA that can help States, institutions of higher 

education, and other stakeholders to strengthen the quality of teacher preparation 

in the United States. Finally, these comments also describe how to reduce the reporting burden of title II by focusing reporting and accountability on a relatively 

small number of key items. 

K–12 STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT, PREPARATION PROGRAM QUALITY, AND PROGRAM

ACCOUNTABILITY

Two-thirds of all fourth graders in the United States are not proficient in reading. 

In mathematics, 58 percent of all U.S. fourth graders are not proficient according 

to the same 2013 test results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress 

(NAEP). 

For eighth-grade students, 64 percent were not proficient in reading. The same 

proportion of our eighth graders was not proficient in mathematics. 

And yet 96 percent of all teacher candidates in the country passed all of their 

teacher licensing tests in the most recent year for which test results are available. 

The table below presents disaggregated NAEP results of grades 4 and 8 student 

performance in reading and mathematics. 

Grade 4 Reading and Mathematics: Percent NOT Proficient on 2013 NAEP 

Reading 

(In percent) 

Mathematics 

(In percent) 

All 4th Graders ....................................................................................................................................... 66 58 

Black Students ........................................................................................................................................ 83 82 

Hispanic Students ................................................................................................................................... 80 74 

White Students ........................................................................................................................................ 55 46 

Grade 8 Reading and Mathematics: Percent NOT Proficient on 2013 NAEP 

Reading 

(In percent) 

Mathematics 

(In percent) 

All 8th Graders ....................................................................................................................................... 64 64 

Black Students ........................................................................................................................................ 83 86 

Hispanic Students ................................................................................................................................... 78 79 

White Students ........................................................................................................................................ 54 55 

Despite these student learning outcomes, the latest title II report card indicates 

that 99 percent of all teacher candidates in the country passed their basic skills 

tests; 98 percent passed all of their professional knowledge tests; and 96 percent 

passed their academic content tests. 

This disconnect between the performance of our young people in core subject areas 

and the performance of their teachers on tests required for licensure and certification is one of the basic failures of the current title II accountability requirements 

for teacher-preparation programs. 

Another problem with the current Title II HEA reporting and accountability system is that few States make any effort to flag and report weak programs as low 

performing. The Title II HEA statute calls on States to ‘‘conduct an assessment to 

identify low performing . . . teacher preparation programs in the State and to assist 

such programs through the provision of technical assistance. Each such State shall 

provide the Secretary with an annual list of low performing teacher-preparation programs and an identification of those programs at risk of being placed on such list 

. . .’’ The title II statute goes on to specify that ‘‘Levels of performance shall be determined solely by the State and may include criteria based on information collected 

pursuant to’’ the title II reporting requirements. 

For the most recent reporting year, 39 States did not classify even one teacher 

preparation program as low performing or at risk of low performance. In fact, 35 

States have never found a program to be low performing or at risk, despite the K– 

12 student performance issues shown in the tables above. 

10 

Among the other 11 States, 38 programs were identified as low performing or at 

risk in 2011. This number represents 1.8 percent of the 2,124 preparation programs 

in the country. 

Apart from not looking carefully at the performance of teacher education programs whose graduates are allowed to obtain licenses and teach in the State, and 

in light of the data presented above on student learning outcomes, the fact that 35 

States have never found a program in need of improvement also suggests that they 

are not doing enough to help programs and their graduates to be as effective as possible in meeting important State education needs. 

If programs that prepare our Nation’s teachers are not held accountable in a 

meaningful way for the inability of their graduates to teach K–12 students do mathematics and learn to read, it is hard to see how the country can help these students 

to become productive and successful members of our society. 

TEACHER QUALITY PARTNERSHIP GRANTS

In an effort to promote innovation and quality improvement in teacher preparation programs, the 1998 reauthorization of the Higher Education Amendments 

(HEA) also established competitive grant programs. 

In recent years, the Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) program funded two 

rounds of awards. In fiscal year 2009, 28 grants were made for a total of $43 million. And in fiscal year 2010, the U.S. Department of Education awarded 12 grants 

totaling $100 million. The statutory focus areas for these grants include: improving 

student achievement, improvements to the quality of prospective and new teachers 

by strengthening both teacher preparation and professional development; holding 

preparation programs accountable for training high quality teachers; and recruiting 

highly qualified prospective teachers into the profession. 

These awards have been made to universities, to a State department of education, 

to a national STEM teaching initiative, and to three school districts. Many of the 

projects have multiple university and local LEA partners. Almost half of the TQP 

grants support ‘‘residency’’ programs that place teacher candidates in extended 

learning experiences in school settings for as long as a full year. 

The 40-funded TQP projects embrace a wide range of preparation strategies and 

subject areas. The most common subject areas addressed by the grantees are special 

education, one or more of the STEM subjects, and preparing new teachers to work 

with English as a Second Language (ESL) or bilingual K–12 students. One project 

appears to have a central focus on reading instruction. Others address teachers for 

all grades, recruiting prospective teachers in rural areas or from community colleges 

in rural areas, and early childhood education. 

Through the work of these 40 grantees and their local partners, the TQP program 

is being used for teacher preparation program changes. University faculty and others involved in these 40 TQP grants are making good faith efforts to improve the 

preparation and support of teacher candidates who enroll in their programs. 

However, it is hard to see much impact on teacher preparation in the United 

States from the program itself or from these individual efforts. There are two main 

reasons for this limited impact: 

• The wide range of TQP objectives and implementation strategies dilutes the 

overall ability of the grant program to foster promising strategies and test their effectiveness in multiple settings. Despite a long list of objectives and activities that 

grantees are required to address, the program does not have an explicit focus on 

content areas like reading or mathematics where the Nation’s students are clearly 

in need of stronger instruction. 

• There is no common evaluation framework for the non-residency grant projects, 

a reflection of how different they are from one another. While the TQP residency 

grants are being evaluated in the same way (by the Institute of Education Sciences 

at the U.S. Department of Education), evaluation is aimed at producing mostly information like program characteristics, and demographic characteristics of participants enrolled in the program. The one analytical component of this assessment concerns the persistence rates in teaching of those who complete the residency programs. 

Both problems could be remedied by a competitive program that targets funding 

for teacher preparation program redesigns that address a small number of topics, 

support grantees in several locations who do the same kind of work (e.g., like 

multisite trials), and evaluate the projects using the same set of measures. 

11 

TITLE II OF HEA AS A RESOURCE TO STRENGTHEN PREPARATION PROGRAM QUALITY AND

ACCOUNTABILITY

A good starting point to improve the impact of title II on program quality and 

accountability is to reduce the reporting burden on States and programs imposed 

by the existing statute and regulations. Too many current reporting elements are 

not central to understanding the preparation, production, and performance of strong 

teachers. And too little attention is given to reporting information about key program outputs and outcomes that affect the learning performance of K–12 students. 

Secretary Duncan reported in 2011 that there were more than 2,000 teacher preparation programs in the country. A noted scholar of this field wrote: 

‘‘There is so much variation among all programs in visions of good teaching, 

standards for admission, rigor of subject matter preparation, what is taught and 

learned, character of supervised clinical experience, and quality of evaluation 

that compared to any other academic profession, the sense of chaos is inescapable’’—(Lee Shulman, Stanford University, 2005). 

Since there is so little overlap between programs, collecting purely descriptive information about them gives States, program leaders, and the public few analytical 

tools to understand program impact on the production and classroom success of 

well-prepared new teachers. Reporting that focuses on a small set of key items that 

relate to program quality can help policymakers and the public know when and why 

a program is good. Instead of what is collected today, the title II reporting system 

should concentrate on: 

• The academic strength of candidates admitted to the program through information on GPA and ACT/SAT scores. 

• Demographic characteristics of those who are admitted to the program, and 

similar data for those who complete the program to gauge the extent to which program enrollments and graduates reflect the diversity of the schools they serve. 

• The proportion of teacher candidates in the program who obtain at least 50 percent of supervised student teaching experience in schools that are high-need and 

also high functioning. 

• The number and percent of graduates prepared as teachers in high-need subject 

areas as defined by the State where the program is located. 

• The number and percent of graduates who are employed as teachers in highneed schools and subject areas, and the number and percent of these teachers who 

persist in teaching for 1–5 years after program completion. 

• A teacher effectiveness measure that captures the extent to which program 

graduates help their K–12 students to learn. 

• Classroom teaching performance for program graduates that is measured by reliable and valid assessments of teaching skills, student engagement and student 

learning. 

• Survey results from preparation program graduates and from their employers 

about how well the program prepares its graduates to teach; the report should include survey response rates. 

The value and validity of measures like these for program improvement and accountability has been affirmed recently by an American Psychological Association 

(APA) task force of educators and measurement experts. Similar program data are 

at the heart of the revised standards for program accreditation adopted in 2013 by 

the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). 

While reporting some of this information may be a heavy lift for some programs 

without external support in data collection and analysis, numerous recent efforts at 

State and other levels provide important resources for programs and States. 

Through the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), at least seven States 

have embarked on comprehensive reforms to teacher licensure and program approval standards, work that will assist programs in those States with reporting and 

improvement strategies. Race to the Top grants in at least 11 States include development of preparation program quality indicators and reporting systems to support 

their use. Forty-seven States have received data system improvement grants 

through the Federal Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) program. Within 

the States, organizations such as the Center for Research, Evaluation, and Advancement of Teacher Education (CREATE), which provides data collection and analysis 

services to more than 50 university preparation programs in Texas, can be tapped 

as program resources for high quality reporting. 

Beyond these resources for better reporting on teacher preparation, Section 208 

of the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA), passed by the Congress in 2008, 

authorized State agencies to share ‘‘any and all pertinent education-related information’’ with teacher preparation programs that ‘‘may enable the teacher preparation 

12 

program to evaluate the effectiveness of the program’s graduates or the program 

itself.’’ 

INCENTIVES FOR STATES TO USE THE SAME INDICATORS AND ACCOUNTABILITY TOOLS

Engineering, accountancy, nursing, and medicine are among the professions that 

have uniform State accountability standards for programs and graduates. In each 

case, the profession worked closely with States to develop a single set of policies 

that apply everywhere and were adopted by each State under its own authority. 

These fields—including nursing with over 1,200 program providers—also use the 

same licensing tests and passing scores for graduates in every State. 

There are good reasons for thinking that this voluntary approach by these professions and the States can make a difference for teacher preparation program quality. 

A significant number of newly licensed teachers in the United States complete a 

preparation program in one State and obtain their initial license in another jurisdiction. Nationwide, 19 percent of all initial State credentials are issued to teachers 

prepared in another State. For 10 States, over 40 percent of new teachers in each 

of these States are trained elsewhere and 22 States have reported that at least 20 

percent of new teachers were prepared outside their State. 

Title II of the HEA should provide incentives that encourage all States to adopt 

the same set of program quality and accountability indicators. One set of common 

standards would ensure that quality means the same thing no matter where the 

program is located or where the graduate is employed. 

While there are understandable personal and geographic reasons for this crossState pattern, it means that students and schools in many States must depend on 

the policies and practices of a different State to make sure their teachers are the 

best possible instructors. The title II reporting system would give States better tools 

for preparation program improvement if it also specified that all States should use 

the same measures for designating low performing or at-risk programs. 

Consistent use of the same indicators across States for program reporting and accountability means that these policies and practices would be built on a set of clear 

signals about program quality that policymakers can understand and program faculty can use in their own work. For guidance on how this approach can work effectively, Congress and the States can look to the experience of other well-respected 

professions. This strategy protects the public through the same set of rules in every 

State and it brings higher levels of public respect for the profession as a whole and 

for those in the profession who serve the public through their work. 

FINAL COMMENTS

Now is a promising time to accelerate progress on teacher preparation program 

reform and accountability. States, national organizations, and programs themselves 

are working to improve the preparation of teachers for our Nation’s students, seeking ways to push weak programs to get better or get out of the business of teacher 

education, and finding stronger ways to measure program and teaching quality. Reports on K–12 learning outcomes show that we must do much more to ensure a 

quality teacher in every classroom. Title II of the HEA can be an effective vehicle 

for this goal. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Crowe. 

Dr. Brabeck. 

STATEMENT OF MARY BRABECK, Ph.D., GALE AND IRA DRUKIER DEAN AND PROFESSOR OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY, NEW 

YORK UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK, NY 

Ms. BRABECK. Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Alexander, 

and committee members, I am honored to have the opportunity to 

talk with you today. I am the chair of the board of directors of the 

Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation. 

I also come to you as someone who has been in higher education 

for 34 years. For 20 years of that time, I have been responsible for 

teacher education as a dean. And I have, over the course of those 

almost four decades now, seen multiple reports of how to reform 

teacher preparation. I count 40, actually, that I have achieved, and 

there may be another one this year. 

13 

But up until now, there has been no rigorous and evidence-based 

process for separating the highly performing programs from the 

poorly performing programs across our country. CAEP aims to 

change that. 

The adoption of CAEP’s new accreditation standards achieved a 

historic consensus. This was the commission that Senator Alexander referred to that was led by Dean Benbow from Vanderbilt. 

And the stakeholders at the table that formed the standards came 

from education deans, the Council of Chief State School Officers, 

teacher unions, parents, critics of higher education, and critics of 

accreditation. The group came together unanimously to approve the 

standards, and those standards were adopted unanimously by the 

board of directors of CAEP in August 2013. 

CAEP has teeth in its standards and will raise the bar so that 

all accredited programs move from adequacy to excellence and 

weak programs are closed. We can no longer rely on outmoded accreditation processes with one-time reviews every 7 to 10 years, on 

mountains of course syllabi with stories or credit hours but little 

data that shows that graduates of those programs can teach all 

children effectively. 

CAEP expects accredited programs to annually collect and report 

evidence that is meaningful, valid, reliable, and actionable, that is, 

as Senator Harkin suggested, data that can help programs improve 

and do a better job at preparing teachers. CAEP’s standards are 

not business as usual. They embody four research-based levers for 

change. 

First, CAEP requires evidence of strong clinical experience and 

partnerships between teacher preparation programs and pre-K–12 

schools, programs that will meet the local and national urgent 

needs that have already been mentioned in your opening remarks, 

special education teachers, STEM teachers, teachers for hard-tostaff schools, teachers for children who are English language learners. And programs will be required to show evidence that their 

training involves partnership with K–12 schools and deep clinical 

experience in the real world of the classroom. 

Second, CAEP will assure the public of teacher candidate quality 

and diversity. CAEP establishes high entry standards that draw 

from grade point averages as well as nationally normed standardized tests and requires both recruitment plans and success rates 

for enrolling diverse candidates. 

Third, CAEP will accredit all providers, from university-based 

programs, like mine at New York University or previously at Boston College, to alternative, for-profit, and online programs. All programs that prepare teachers to be accredited will have to show evidence of quality and continuous improvement of teacher preparation. 

Finally, and above all, CAEP insists that accredited programs be 

judged by outcomes and impact on pre-K–12 student learning and 

development. Results matter. Effort is not enough. 

Today, we have better tools for the task of building an evidencebased teacher preparation profession. CAEP will require use of 

multiple measures such as the developing new generation of State 

assessments to evaluate PK–12 learning. CAEP requires, where 

available, the use of State longitudinal data systems that link 

14 

teacher education programs to K–12 learning outcomes. CAEP requires annual reporting of surveys of graduates and employers and 

valid and reliable observations of candidates teaching. 

We can, Senator Alexander, identify excellence in teaching, and 

we must, and we must make it public. CAEP will encourage the 

use of the robust literature on the power and the cautions regarding valid and reliable use of these new tools, such as the recent 

task force report developed by the American Psychological Association that sets out the conditions for valid and reliable use of these 

statistical measures—statistical methods. 

In conclusion, I respectfully ask that you consider four recommendations to improve the Higher Education Act. First, I agree 

with my colleague, Dr. Crowe, to streamline title II reporting. Second, continue to build data capacity in the States. Third, expand 

and support research and development and implementation. We 

simply need to know more about what it takes to prepare an effective teacher. And, finally, support accountability. Encourage and 

monitor States who act on low performing programs as reported in 

title II’s State report card. 

We have, I believe, an historic opportunity to do what the 

Flexner Report did for medical education in 1910. Prior to the 

Flexner Report, admission to medical school was—you could be admitted without a high school diploma. Medical schools differed in 

their curricula. They differed in how they prepared doctors. And 

since the Flexner Report standardized the curriculum, we have 

seen a continual improvement in the preparation of physicians in 

this country. The same needs to happen in teacher preparation. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Brabeck follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARY BRABECK, PH.D. 

SUMMARY

The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) is the new single specialized accreditor of educator preparation in the United States. Through evidence that programs meet rigorous accreditation standards and transparent reporting, CAEP will inform policymakers, providers, and candidates about the quality of 

preparation programs. Equally important, CAEP will raise the bar in educator preparation so that all accredited programs in our Nation move from adequacy to excellence and weak programs are closed. CAEP will accomplish these goals through four 

levers for change: 

1. CAEP requires evidence of strong clinical experiences and partnerships 

with P–12 schools and districts that meet (local and national) employers’ urgent 

needs (e.g., Special Education; Science, Technology, Engineering and Math teachers, 

hard to staff schools). 

2. CAEP raises standards for selection of capable and diverse candidates, 

and assures stakeholders of candidate quality from recruitment and admission 

into teaching. 

3. CAEP accreditation includes all providers and encourages innovation 

from university-based programs to alternative, for-profit, and online programs. 

4. Most importantly CAEP accreditation will be determined by evidence of impact on P–12 student learning and development—Results matter; ‘‘effort’’ is 

not enough. 

CAEP is working with educator preparation programs to help them develop a culture of evidence to continuously improve educator preparation even as programs are 

held accountable for demonstrating graduates are effective teachers. CAEP holds 

itself accountable to the public by ensuring that accredited programs are preparing 

teachers who are classroom-ready and can effectively teach all children. To assist 

CAEP in this dramatic change in educator preparation, I make a number of recommendations in my longer testimony but the most important are these: 

15 

1 Annual Reporting Measures include: (1) Impact on P–12 learning and development; (2) Indicators of teaching effectiveness; (3) Results of employer surveys, including retention and employment milestones; (4) Results of completer surveys; (5) Graduation rates; (6) Ability of completers 

to meet licensing (certification) and any additional State requirements; (7) Ability of completers 

to be hired in education positions for which they were prepared; (8) Student loan default rates 

and other consumer information. 

1. Streamline Title II reporting requirements by aligning Federal program 

grantee reporting to CAEP’s performance-based and outcome-driven measures. This 

will shift the focus of federally funded programs on evidence of impact on P–12 student performance.1

2. Expand and Support Research and Development. Encourage the development and use of new and current measures of teacher performance, assessment of 

the impact of teaching on learning, and survey research on effective teachers. 

3. Encourage States to partner with CAEP in accreditation and program approval, and alignment of State and CAEP standards, data requirements and accountability processes. 

CAEP aims not only to raise the performance of new teachers as practitioners in 

the Nation’s P–12 schools, but also to elevate the stature of the entire profession. 

CAEP will do this by raising the standards and evidence that support providers’ 

claims of quality and insisting on transparency and accountability to the public. 

CAEP will ensure that accredited programs prepare teachers who are classroomready and demonstrably raise learning for all of America’s diverse P–12 student 

population. This is an urgent national priority. 

Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Alexander, committee members and my distinguished panelists, I am honored to have the opportunity to speak before you 

today as chair of the Board of Directors of the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). It is a pleasure to discuss CAEP’s new standards and 

how they ensure that accredited programs prepare teachers who are classroomready and demonstrably raise learning for all of America’s diverse student population. This is an urgent priority for all of us. 

Launched in July 2013, CAEP is the new single specialized accreditor of educator 

preparation in the United States. Accreditation in educator preparation plays a vital 

role in informing policymakers, providers and candidates about the quality of preparation programs and whether the professional standards are being met. Equally important, CAEP is committed to raising the bar in educator preparation so that all 

accredited programs in our Nation move from adequacy to excellence and weak programs are closed. We can no longer tolerate failure or mediocrity in the preparation 

of the next generation of America’s teachers and school leaders. 

I have been in higher education for 34 years, and for over 20 years I have been, 

as a dean, responsible for teacher preparation. During the span of my career, there 

have been multiple calls for education reform, but with very little agreement on how 

to implement needed reforms in a credible way that separates the highly performing 

programs from the poorly performing programs. In my judgment, the adoption of 

CAEP’s new rigorous standards achieved historic consensus and alignment on educator preparation issues among diverse stakeholders for the first time. The stakeholders engaged in developing the CAEP standards and recommendations for a radically different approach to accreditation included deans, State policymakers, local 

superintendents, unions, teachers, P–12 student parents, alternative preparation 

programs, and even critics of educator preparation and accreditation. 

CAEP’s standards are not business as usual—but embody four research-based levers of change that will have strong effects on preparation. 

• CAEP requires evidence of strong clinical experiences and partnerships with schools—Integrating a robust clinical experience into the core of any 

preparation program is essential. This demands strong partnerships with P–12 

schools and school districts that will meet employers’ urgent needs (e.g., special education teachers, STEM teachers, teachers of English language learners, teachers for 

the most challenging schools, etc.) 

• CAEP will assure the public of teacher candidate enhanced quality and 

diversity—CAEP establishes higher entry standards for admission into the programs and active recruitment of high quality and diverse candidates. From recruitment and admission, through preparation and exit and into P–12 classrooms, educator preparation programs will take responsibility for building an educator workforce 

that is capable and representative of America’s diverse population. Graduates of 

these programs will be classroom and school-ready to teach all children. 

16 

1 National Research Council. (2010) Preparing teachers: Building evidence for sound policy. Retrieved from http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?recordlid=12882, 180. 2 Council of Chief State School Officers. (2012). Our responsibility, our promise: Transforming 

educator preparation and entry into the profession. Washington, DC. 22. 3 American Psychological Association Task Force, Assessing and Evaluating Teacher Preparation Programs. Accepted without revision by the American Psychological Association Council of 

Representatives, February 23, 2014. 4Measures of Effective Teaching Project. (2013). Ensuring fair and reliable measures of effective teaching: Culminating findings from the MET Project’s three-year study. Retrieved from 

http://www.metrproject.org/downloads/METlEnsuringlFairlandlReliablelMeasuresl PractitionerlBrief.pdf, 20. 

• CAEO includes all providers—Accreditation must encourage innovation by 

welcoming all of the varied providers from university-based programs to alternative, 

for-profit, and online programs to seek accreditation and meet challenging levels of 

performance. 

• And surmounting all others, CAEP insists that preparation be judged by outcomes and impact on P–12 student learning and development—Results matter; ‘‘effort’’ is not enough. 

CAEP’s footprint is expansive and positions accreditation as a lever for change in 

improving educator quality and effectiveness. Currently, more than 900 educator 

preparation providers participate in the educator preparation accreditation system. 

Participating institutions account for nearly 60 percent of the providers of educator 

preparation in the United States, and their enrollments account for nearly twothirds of newly prepared teachers. 

A critical part of the accreditation system is the dynamic partnerships developed 

between CAEP and the States on program approval, licensure, and data improvement policies to support continuous improvement. Today, 23 States require accreditation for all public teacher education institutions and 31 States require accreditation for the majority of its institutions. There is a growing interest among State policymakers in adopting the new, rigorous CAEP accreditation system to leverage 

change and urgent reforms; Ohio, Rhode Island, Kentucky, Illinois, and Georgia 

State superintendents and agencies have all begun to pave the way for implementation of CAEP’s new mode of accreditation. We expect others will follow suit with the 

endorsement of the standards by the Council for Chief State School Officers, the 

Chiefs for Change, and the State Higher Education Executive Officers and many 

other organizations. 

CAEP places emphasis on evidence, continuous improvement, and innovation. 

CAEP aims not only to raise the performance of new teachers as practitioners in 

the Nation’s P–12 schools, but also to elevate the stature of the entire profession. 

CAEP will do this by raising the standards for evidence that supports providers’ 

claims of quality and insisting on transparency and accountability to the public. A 

number of recent national reports from the National Research Council,1 the American Educational Research Association, and the Council of Chief State School Officers2 point out the glaring need for research on effective teaching practices and 

preparation, empirically grounded quality control systems, and comprehensive and 

coherent systems for collecting, reporting, and using data and outcomes-based measures to drive continuous improvement. These bodies of work provided a foundation 

for the development of the standards and focus on the desired outcome to advance 

P–12 student learning. 

CAEP will exploit the new tools recently developed to assess programs as part of 

its agenda to promote continuous improvement and evidence-based accreditation. 

Today, we have better tools for the task of building an evidence-based profession. 

For example, we have begun to build better State longitudinal data systems that 

allow us to link data from teacher education programs to data from P–12 student 

learning. Today, we have more rigorous State college- and career-readiness standards and will soon have a next generation of assessments to evaluate student learning of these more rigorous standards. 

We also have more sophisticated statistical models to assess the impact of programs on student learning. States and districts are on-lining new value-added modeling (VAM3) and other student growth measures and there is a robust literature 

on their power and cautions regarding valid and reliable use of these models to assess programs. And research studies are yielding better information about what 

measures are the best predictors of student learning gains. For example, recent research from the Gates Foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching Project4 (MET) 

found that elementary and middle school student survey assessments and high-quality classrooms observations systems, used in combination, can be reliable measures 

of effective teaching. 

17 

CAEP is currently engaged in research to explore the possibilities of using these 

P–12 student surveys in assessing pre-service teachers. Advancing research and development (R & D) and innovation are strategic priorities for CAEP and we are 

among the first accreditors to have a commitment and committee devoted to expanding our knowledge base. 

The emphasis on robust evidence, continuous improvement and innovation represents a new vision and mode for accreditation. No longer can our profession rely 

on outmoded accreditation systems with one-time reviews every 7–10 years. The 

new system will demand yearly accountability and continuous improvement with 

frequent review cycles and annual reports by providers on their performance data 

that will trigger appropriate action and incentives by CAEP. No longer can our profession depend on an input-focused (e.g., syllabi, library resources, credit hours), 

compliance-based accreditation that allows programs to get credit for merely claiming the existence of a quality assurance system or submitting stacks of paper but 

little data that show graduates can teach all children. CAEP expects accredited programs to collect and report data and evidence that are meaningful, valid, reliable, 

and actionable. And by actionable, I mean that institutions or programs will shine 

a bright light on the strengths and weaknesses within their programs and their 

partnerships with P–12 schools, for their candidates, alumni and other stakeholders 

to use. And providers will use the data to inform decisions about how to improve 

their programs. 

CAEP will not accredit low-performing programs and will identify and celebrate 

outstanding programs that are making substantial contributions to the field. 

The States will also need to do their part in closing down poor performers that 

produce ineffective educators. 

Finally, CAEP must allow flexibility so that programs can take risks, re-imagine 

the delivery of education, and test innovations without being penalized. 

CAEP’s five core standards and recommendations were based upon the best available research in the field and on lessons learned from high-performing organizations 

in other sectors and best practices in accreditation. The three areas of teacher preparation identified by the National Research Council (NRC) as most likely to have 

the strongest effects on raising student achievement are: (1) content and pedagogical 

knowledge, (2) clinical experience, and (3) the quality of teacher candidates. Standards 1–3 were developed in response to these areas: 

Standard 1-Content and pedagogical knowledge—Candidates develop a deep 

understanding of the critical concepts and principles of their discipline and, by 

completion, are able to use discipline-specific practices flexibly to advance the 

learning of all students toward attainment of college- and career-readiness standards. Examples of evidence might include data from new assessments demonstrating candidates’ understanding of content knowledge and direct classroom observations of candidates’ ability to teach content effectively to diverse learners. 

Standard 2-Clinical Practice and Partnerships—Effective partnerships and 

high-quality clinical practice are central to preparation so that candidates develop 

the knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions necessary to demonstrate positive impact on all P–12 students’ learning and development. An example of evidence 

for this standard might include demonstration of joint decisionmaking on program 

improvements, co-selection of clinical educators, or use of direct classroom observation protocols to meet school districts’ human capital and instructional needs. 

Standard 3-Quality of teacher candidates—The quality of candidates selected 

for teaching is essential and preparation programs will be responsible for ensuring 

quality from recruitment, at admission, through the progression of courses and 

clinical experiences, and to decisions that completers are prepared to teach effectively and are recommended for certification. Regarding selection of candidates into 

a teacher education program, by 2016 to be accredited, programs will need to demonstrate that their entering cohorts of students have on average a GPA of 3.0. The 

same groups will need to have, on average, a group SAT score above the 50th percentile by 2016; and by 2020, on average the group must be in the top one-third 

of the distribution of scores on a standardized nationally normed test (e.g., GRE, 

SAT, ACT) test. Likewise we need a teaching force that reflects the demographics 

of the P–12 population. We need ethnic, racial, language of origin and gender diversity; we need more men in the teaching force. Finally programs need to recruit candidates who will meet local and national needs (e.g., special education, STEM teachers and hard to staff schools). Evidence of meeting this standard might include reporting of GPAs, nationally normed tests if candidates, and strategic recruitment 

plans and success rates of programs. 

The remaining CAEP standards discussed below were developed from a body of 

research on best practices in high performing organizations in other sectors and in 

accreditation. 

18 

5 Annual Reporting Measures include: (1) Impact on P–12 learning and development; (2) Indicators of teaching effectiveness; (3) Results of employer surveys, including retention and employment milestones; (4) Results of completer surveys; (5) Graduation rates; (6) Ability of completers 

to meet licensing (certification) and any additional State requirements; (7) Ability of completers 

to be hired in education positions for which they were prepared; and (8) Student loan default 

rates and other consumer information. 

Standard 4-Impact and outcomes—With an emphasis on assuring quality 

based upon outcomes and evidence rather than solely inputs, the Commission created a standard for using multiple measures for determining the impact of program 

completers on P–12 student learning and development, classroom instruction, and 

schools, and the satisfaction of its completers with the relevance and effectiveness 

of their preparation. This standard that providers must show evidence of completers’ 

impact is of special significance in that providers must meet each of the four components of the standard to be accredited. To my knowledge, no other accreditor has 

put down such a challenging marker to hold those they accredit accountable for results. The four components are: (1) impact on P–12 student learning, (2) indicators 

of teacher effectiveness, (3) satisfaction of employers, and (4) satisfaction of 

completers. 

Standard 5-Quality assurance and continuous improvement—In keeping 

with the dual function of accreditation, as both accountability and continuous improvement, CAEP created a standard for assessing the provider’s system for assuring quality and continuing improvement through the effective use of valid 

data from multiple measures. Programs must demonstrate how they use their 

data to improve the program and its outcomes. To support continuous improvement, 

providers would assure that appropriate stakeholders, including alumni, employers, 

practitioners, school and community partners are involved in program evaluation, 

improvement, and identification of models of excellence. 

CAEP will hold itself accountable and will study the intended and unintended 

consequences of implementation of the standards. CAEP will assess how well it 

meets its fiduciary responsibility to the public to ensure that all accredited programs provide high quality teachers for our Nation’s schools. 

As the committee moves forward with its legislative and policy activities in the 

months and years ahead, I respectfully ask that you consider the following recommendations to improve the Higher Education Act: 

1. Streamline Title II reporting requirements by aligning Federal program 

grantee reporting to CAEP’s performance-based and outcome-driven measures. Currently, metrics on the title II institutional and State report cards do not capture 

what we need to know about program quality, outcomes, and impacts. CAEP’s new 

program impact standard focuses on eight required data elements, including teaching candidates’ impact on P–12 student performance.5 A streamlined, outcomesbased reporting system with common data elements would allow Federal Government, States, the accreditor, and programs to benchmark performance and identify 

innovations and high quality programs or aspects of programs. These exemplars 

might inform other providers and possibly be duplicated or even taken to scale. Specifically, CAEP recommends that title II reporting in both HEA and ESEA be 

aligned to CAEP’s new performance-based outcome measures, along with common 

reporting elements new standards and on program characteristics. 

2. Build Data Capacity and Reduce Reporting Requirements and Burden—Build national, State and local capacity for data quality and demand common 

data for benchmarking performance. This will provide an important feedback loop 

to accreditors, providers, policymakers and the public. CAEP recommends that the 

National Center for Educational Statistics develop common data definitions in educator preparation for benchmarking purposes. I also recommend continuation of investments in the federally funded State Longitudinal Data Systems grant program 

with a particular focus on reporting systems for educator preparation. 

3. Expand and Support Research and Development and Innovation—invest in R&D to further build knowledge about effective educator preparation targeting the Institute for Education Sciences, National Science Foundation, and the 

National Institute of Mental Health. Currently, I believe that less than 1 percent 

of money for education goes into research; compared with 20–25 percent of health 

budget which goes to research. As the National Research Council reported in 2010, 

we need better information on which teacher preparation program characteristics 

produce effective teachers and leaders. Continue and expand efforts to develop and 

improve reliable and valid assessments of effective teaching and P–12 learning and 

development. Like medicine years ago, education must be transformed into an evidence-based discipline and we need the tools to do that. 

19 

4. Support Accountability—We need the Federal Government to help, encourage, and monitor States who act on low performing programs, as reported in title 

II’s State report cards. But closing weak programs is only part of the solution. 

Working together, States and CAEP must also move the full range of programs to 

get better, a shift from tolerating ‘‘adequacy’’ to insisting on ‘‘excellence.’’ A fullcourt press by States and CAEP in collaboration is required to meet the needs of 

the Nation’s P–12 learners. Support Innovation and Capacity-Building for major 

systemic changes to meet CAEP’s rigorous standards. Investments in robust clinical 

practice models and partnerships between preparation programs and school districts 

will develop the capacity for programs to meet CAEP’s new high expectations. 

5. Encourage States to partner with CAEP in accreditation and program approval, and alignment of State and CAEP standards, data requirements and accountability processes. Alignment will produce coherence and reduce redundant time 

consuming reporting that too often in the past has not improved P–12 outcomes. 

We now have a historic opportunity to do what the Flexner Report did for medical 

education in 1910. That report called on American medical schools to enact higher 

admission and graduation standards and to adhere strictly to robust scientific 

knowledge in teaching and research. Flexner transformed medical education making 

it the clinical model it is today and spurred the transformation of North American 

medicine into a profession. Prior to the release of that report, medical schools differed greatly in their curricula, methods of assessment and requirements for admission and graduation, and clinical preparation. These are the current challenges in 

educator preparation. The Flexner report had a deep and lasting impact on medical 

education and lifted the stature of the profession. I think all of us in this room who 

have a stake in improving the preparation of teachers have an unique opportunity 

to do the same, ultimately improving the outcomes for our Nation’s students. Thank 

you for the opportunity to discuss CAEP’s overhaul of its accreditation system and 

how it will positively impact preparation programs and P–12 student learning in our 

Nation. I look forward to answering any questions you might have. 

The CHAIRMAN. Very good. Thank you very much. 

Dr. Koerner. 

STATEMENT OF MARI KOERNER, Ph.D., PROFESSOR AND DEAN 

OF THE MARY LOU FULTON TEACHERS COLLEGE, ARIZONA 

STATE UNIVERSITY, TEMPE, AZ 

Ms. KOERNER. Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me to be 

here. I’m going to present three imperative designs that Arizona 

State University uses to measure its own importance in the community. 

The first is impact. If we look at the impact of our TQP grant 

and our teacher ed program, what we have done is leverage the 

TQP grant to change all of our teacher ed programs. We’re one of 

the largest teacher ed programs in the country. So that means we 

have scaled up to thousands of students. It also means that since 

2009, we have, through a reform of our undergraduate program, K 

through 8 elementary, we’ve impacted almost 3,000 teachers and 

49,000 students in Arizona. 

As one example of a partnership we’ve had with the school district since 1999, our first school district and our first Federal grant, 

we have had 16 generations of teachers, and that’s a turnaround 

district. They attribute ASU with being an important integral part 

of turning around that district. 

The second imperative is excellence. So when we were going for 

excellence in our teacher prep program, the first thing we did was 

reduce our education courses by 25 percent. We increased content 

courses, arts and science—and, Senator Alexander, what you were 

speaking to—but not any arts and science, not Chemistry 101 and 

102, because we knew that we had to design science courses with 

scientists. 

20 

The Dean of Arts and Science is an internationally known scientist. He said to me that two of us were going to change the 

world, so this is part of my path to getting there. And we designed 

general ed courses that were integrated inquiry, getting a lot of 

wrong answers, like scientists do, to get to the right answer, not 

multiple choice. 

So we designed a course called Forensics—I didn’t design it. They 

designed it—where students get a virtual dead body—so far, no 

real dead bodies—and they figure out what happened in order to 

get that person to be dead. Students are signing up. One we were 

going to call Sex, but we decided that that might be too provocative, and I think we call it Reproduction. 

We’ve done the same with math. We have done this in partnership with arts and science. We have a Nobel prize winner who designed a course in sustainability. The College of Nursing designed 

a course in health. We say that it takes an entire university, an 

entire community to prepare a teacher. So when we look at programs that don’t have the resources that a place like ASU has or 

NYU has, or Vanderbilt—we have marshaled all those resources to 

prepare teachers. 

One of the things we also do is we used our TIF grant, which 

is incentive funds, for in-service teachers, and the assessment is a 

performance assessment. We said if it’s good enough for in-service 

teachers, we’re going to use it for our undergraduates getting ready 

to go into the classroom. 

NCTQ noted us as being one of the best programs in clinical experiences because if our students do not pass their performance 

test twice, they are counseled out of education. They will not get 

certification. We do not think it’s the birthright of every person to 

become a teacher. So we counsel them into something that they can 

do. 

I was an English lit major. I never heard anybody when I read 

books. So I think that we can also encourage our kids to be in those 

majors as well. 

The last thing is access. Our program has 35 percent minority 

students. We graduate about 100 Native Americans every year. We 

are on reservations. We have right now an early childhood special 

ed program on the Navajo Nation. 

We also—and no one ever talks about community colleges. Access 

to teacher preparation is through community colleges for places 

like ASU. Sixty percent of our students come from community colleges. We are in partnership—it has taken a long time, 4 years. 

The TQP grant provided funds for community colleges, school districts, and our faculty to design content courses that their students 

take in community colleges that transfer to ASU, again, based on 

national standards. 

I guess what I want to say in terms of recommendation—what 

my colleagues have already said—is that the TQP grant has been 

essential in reforming what we’ve done. But we have scaled it up. 

We have had complete buy-in from the president and the provost 

and the dean—me. It is not a side program. It is the program that 

we do. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Koerner follows:] 

21 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARI KOERNER, PH.D. 

SUMMARY

Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University, an RU/VH (research university with very high research activity), is ranked #18 by U.S. News and 

World Report. As one of the largest colleges of education in the country, the teacher 

education program has about 3,200 undergraduates and 600 graduate students. In 

addition we have about 2,200 graduate students in master’s degree programs, an 

Ed. D. program and Ph.D. programs totaling 6,000+ students. 

MLFTC has a record of leveraging Federal funds for systematic reform in our 

teacher education programs. We have implemented, studied, sustained and scaled 

a rigorous model of teacher preparation. We began with 7 original school district 

partners in 1999 and are scaling up to 29 school districts and 130 schools. We work 

in partnerships with other colleges at the university, especially arts and science, engineering, community colleges, public and charter schools, Teach for America, donors and foundations. We continue to assess our programs and improve the quality 

of our graduates who are overwhelmingly hired by our school partners. As a testimony to our innovative and replicable model of teacher preparation, in 2013 alone, 

we hosted over 20 institutions and State departments who were interested in learning about our programs. This includes the Iowa Department of Education which is 

providing funding for teacher prep programs willing to adopt our residency program. 

Through our intellectual resources, external funding and hard work, we increased 

the achievement of children all over Arizona. Specifically, we: 

• Deepened subject matter by increasing content rigor with 25 percent fewer pedagogy courses in our programs that translated into more math, science, and humanities courses. • Address the fragmentation of content and field experience by: 

• Making a strong connection between clinical experience and coursework. • Implementing a rigorous year-long student teaching residency; i.e., iTeachAZ. 

• Use timely and substantive feedback to students and clinical faculty by implementing a performance assessment process—the TAP Instructional Rubric by which 

we can screen candidates out of teacher certification. • Enrich learning experiences with cutting edge technologies creating interactive 

digital games specially designed to teach professional skills. • Developed best practice curriculum based on best attributes of Teach for America (Sanford Inspire Program). • Leverage resources to strengthen access to programs by creating partnerships 

with philanthropists and not-for-profits who provide scholarships for undergraduate 

students. 

In 2004, the College of Education was awarded a $9.97M ‘‘Teacher Quality Enhancement’’ (TQE) grant called PDS TENET from the U.S. DOE. The goals included 

recruitment, preparation, and retention of top quality teachers in high-poverty 

urban and remote districts in Arizona to increase student achievement in these districts. In one of the original school districts, we are preparing the 16th generation 

of teachers. The then-failing school district has raised its achievement to a current 

grade of B+ crediting much of the improvement to ASU. 

Key learnings from TENET informed ‘‘PDS NEXT.’’ In 2009, the college was awarded a $34M ‘‘Teacher Quality Partnership’’ grant, NEXT. Due to Federal cuts, 

the TQP grant was significantly reduced over the 5-year period (receiving $24.7M). 

Despite this challenge, in its final year, the project has met or exceeded its objectives, including: 

• Reforming 40 teacher prep courses in five core subjects at ASU and its 11 

partnering community colleges. • Developing the model iTeachAZ Data Dashboard providing data regarding 

teacher candidate performance. • Creating the Professional Learning Library (www.pll.asu.edu), an online resource center that provides resources to inservice teachers and preservice teachers. 

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TQP

1. Emphasis on institutionalization and sustainability requires: 

a. Evidence of ‘‘buy-in’’ from the university president, chief academic officer, 

dean and other colleges. 

b. Plans to scale the model within a given timeframe. 

c. Articulation and demonstration of how the grant funds will include college 

faculty and administrators in the structure of the project and in the curriculum redesign. 

22 

2. Integrate with existing academic programs and their faculty to achieve program 

quality and maximize grant impact. 

3. Include undergraduates in ‘‘residency’’ programs because currently the Federal 

Government only allows stipends for graduate students. 

Chairman Harkin, Senator Alexander and members of the subcommittees, thank 

you for inviting me to talk with you about teacher preparation. 

Much of what we do at Arizona State University is guided by a vision of an activist President, Michael Crow and the compelling charge to make the world a better 

place. We take pride in our students. Often children of families who have struggled 

to create a path for them to go to college, they are the first college bound generation 

and ASU is their ‘‘dream’’ school. Without hyperbole, they are living proof of the 

American Dream. Our students aspire to become teachers and see teaching as a lifelong profession. President Crow’s vision is compelling and serves as a charge for our 

college. 

To establish ASU as the model for a New American University, measured not 

by who we exclude, but rather by who we include and how they succeed; pursuing research and discovery that benefits the public good; assuming major responsibility for the economic, social, and cultural vitality and health and wellbeing of the community. 

Many teachers come from working class families and teaching becomes a way for 

them to enter middle class. I am one of those stories; child of an Italian immigrant 

who only finished 8th grade and yet had a daughter move through public education 

to receive a doctorate and become a dean of a college in a top notch university. I 

went to Chicago Public Schools and the University of Illinois at Chicago. And then 

became a teacher through what would now be called an ‘‘alternative route.’’ Even 

though I was always successful academically and graduated from college, through 

double promotion, at 19 years old, I can say with confidence, I had no clue how to 

teach. Perhaps the reason I value what we do in Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College 

is because I had to learn the hard way—through trial and error—while the students 

in my classrooms waited for their teacher to get to be just even good enough. 

I take great pride in who we are and what we do at ASU. I cannot emphasize 

enough that we have the full support of the President, the Provost and Deans of 

all the other colleges. I have never been told to ‘‘slow down,’’ ‘‘take it easy,’’ ‘‘what 

are you doing!’’ And because of that, our college has built on a strong history of 

teaching, service and research to prepare the best teachers and researchers, fulfilling our mission: ‘‘to be a constructive force in education’’ which sets a ‘‘new standard for teaching, discovery and innovation.’’ We have built, in my opinion, the college of the 21st Century where research guides what we do but does not slow us 

down. Where ‘‘scaling up’’ is necessary because why would we do pilots when only 

a few of our students could get the best practices? And where we understand making mistakes means you are moving beyond discussion to action. We realize we need 

a lot of people as partners, including and especially the Federal Government and 

their resources because we have a track record of leveraging those funds to make 

systematic reform in our teacher education programs. 

Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University, an RU/VH (research university with very high research activity), is ranked #18 by U.S. News and 

World Report. As one of the largest colleges of education in the country, our teacher 

education program has about 3,200 undergraduates and 600 graduate students. In 

addition, the college also has about 2,200 graduate students in master’s degree programs, an Ed. D. program and Ph.D. programs totaling 6,000+ students. 

A BRIEF HISTORY

Our history is part of who we are and the very identity of the entire University. 

Here is a brief timeline which shows the cultural and core importance of our college 

to the university. 

1886: Arizona State University was founded as a Normal School in the Territory 

of Arizona, the first institution of higher education in Arizona, and was established 

to train public school teachers and also teach ‘‘husbandry’’ (agriculture) and the mechanical arts. 

1925: The Normal School, with 41 faculty members and 672 students, became the 

Tempe State Teachers College with the power to establish a 4-year college curriculum offering a Bachelor of Education. A 2-year curriculum was also offered, 

leading to a diploma to teach in Arizona elementary schools, and in an additional 

2 years earned a Bachelor of Education degree. 

23 

1928: The Bachelor of Arts in Education was authorized. Students completing a 

4-year course were eligible for graduate work in education at a university, and 

would receive secondary certificates permitting them to teach in Arizona high 

schools. The requirement for diploma and grade school teaching certificates increased to a 3-year curriculum. 

1958: The people of Arizona voted two-to-one on a State ballot proposition changing the name of the institution to Arizona State University. The College of Education was one of the four core colleges of the university 

2009: The College of Teacher Education and Leadership (CTEL) and the School 

of Education Innovation and Teacher Preparation are merged along with all of the 

teacher preparation programs at Tempe, encompassing all initial teacher certification (undergraduate and graduate). Already having programs on the Downtown 

Campus, CTEL now had programs on four campuses. 

2010: The College of Teacher Education and Leadership and The Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School of Education merged to impact education locally, 

nationally, and globally and were re-named The Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, 

the college we are now. 

These are our current demographics of our students: 

Undergraduate 

American Indian/Alaska Native ........................................................................................................................................ 87 

Asian ................................................................................................................................................................................ 98 

Black/African-American .................................................................................................................................................... 118 

Hispanic/Latino ................................................................................................................................................................ 696 

International ..................................................................................................................................................................... 17 

Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander ..................................................................................................................................... 7 

Two or More Races ........................................................................................................................................................... 81 

Unspecified ....................................................................................................................................................................... 21 

WHite ................................................................................................................................................................................ 2,030 

Grand Total ................................................................................................................................................................. 3,155 

TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM TODAY

Over the last decade, we have implemented, studied, and scaled a rigorous model 

of teacher preparation that can be replicated nationally. One of our main goals in 

improving our teacher preparation program was to increase the rigor of our 

coursework, which included adding more mathematics, science requirements and 

humanities (especially for elementary majors). In the past, students were required 

to take only 1 upper division math course (a methods course), and three lower division courses—two of which were focused on mathematics pedagogy and not content. 

Often the issue of articulation with community colleges is overlooked. But, approximately 60 percent of our undergraduates transfer from community colleges. 

There are 11 community colleges from which most of our transfer students come. 

It is very important that we collaborate with the community colleges, especially regarding curriculum. We have little control of the curriculum or instruction the 

transfer students receive in their first 2 college years, so a major part of our college’s undergraduate transformation involved maintaining open lines of communication with the community colleges. 

Five years ago we embarked on a process of revising lower division (100–200 

level) course work for our teacher preparation program (funded by TQE grant). Most 

of the community colleges participated in this process that resulted in 40 new 

courses, many of which are now a part of our and the community colleges’ required 

curriculum. As a result, our college and many community colleges now have a number of courses that are substantially identical, making transfer from community colleges to ASU much more streamlined. Mathematics, however, was the area that 

proved to be the most difficult to align between the community colleges and our college. 

The community colleges, math faculty from Arts and Sciences, as well as MLFTC 

faculty collaborated to design the new required mathematics courses. This took a 

lot of relationship and trust building. The new courses are aligned with the Common Core and research-based best practices for teaching mathematics. Even though 

some community colleges helped design the courses, there was significant resistance 

to adopting them for their own programs. The new courses are more difficult than 

the old courses and they do not have a pedagogical component—they are content 

24 

only. We at ASU were persistent in communicating our vision for elementary teachers who are prepared to teach math to serve 21st Century needs. We conducted 

meetings with the community colleges, visited the community colleges, met informally as well as formally, and met with mathematics leaders from the other State 

universities to demonstrate the need for changes to math curriculum for teacher 

preparation. We also extended our hand to help the colleges revise their courses. 

We listened to their concerns and made some revisions to the courses based on their 

insights. The community colleges eventually adopted our vision for mathematics and 

have started to revise their courses to align with ours. The result of our collaborations with the community colleges concerning their curriculum is a generation of 

new teachers who are more equipped to teach mathematics than previously, especially at the elementary and middle school levels in Arizona. 

In addition, we made changes to our required science curriculum. The Dean of 

College of Liberal Arts and Science and I agreed to work together to revise the general education science courses to have them be more appropriate to what PreK–8 

teacher will teach. The collaborative nature of this process has been challenging. I 

quickly realized that it was a revelation to the scientists that there were ‘‘standards’’ that teachers actually had to engage. ASU is not unique in this respect—it’s 

a challenge to get scientists anywhere to look beyond the lab. But as a result of 

building these courses, our scientists at ASU are now much more aware of what 

happens in K–8 and much more interested in looking at undergraduate science education as part of a continuum of learning. Framing our courses with the standards 

helps us reinforce that we are building on the good, important work being done at 

the K–12 level. The great thing about our courses is that they both reorient undergraduate science education and, thus, extend the continuum of science education, 

take steps to enhance the impact of K–8 teachers earlier in that continuum. 

We ended up with Reforming Science Education for Teachers and Students 

(ReSETS) initiative is a unique collaboration of world-class research scientists from 

ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and science education and curriculum 

experts from the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. ReSETS builds on the recognition that the quality of local, State, and national policy, as well as the vitality of 

future science innovation, relies on our ability to grow better non-scientists. ReSETS 

is developing new science courses geared toward building science literacy in nonscience major undergraduates, in general, and better serving the needs of preservice 

teachers, in particular. The courses break with the traditional discipline-based 

model of general education in a number of key ways. 

ReSETS serve as a model and include: 

• Transdisciplinary focus. 

• An exploration of the connections and concepts that cut across the natural 

sciences. 

• Stress the nature of science and science process skills, rather than disciplinary 

minutiae, is stressed. 

• A linkage to emerging State and national science standards, such as the Common Core and the Next Generation Science Standards. 

• Utilization of new tools to increase student engagement and assess science literacy (examples: Digital labs and Science Literacy Concept Inventory). 

These design features make ReSETS courses stress science as a way of knowing 

and reducing the unknown. Such a framework better serves future K–8 teachers, 

who need to impart the nature of science and science process skills within a standards-based context. It also benefits non-science major undergraduates for whom general science literacy is crucial to functioning as informed citizens in today’s global 

community. 

In addition to ReSETS, all majors are required to take a new course, Sustainability Science for Teachers. This course was designed in collaboration with the 

School of Sustainability. Our Nobel Prize winning scientist, Dr. Lee Hartwell, designed the course; He and his team work with MLFTC faculty in teaching it. In the 

course, students learn about sustainability science content while grappling with 

global issues involving water, food, fuel, and other real issues facing the world at 

large. It is geared toward giving undergraduate teaching candidates the necessary 

knowledge and skills related to the challenges of improving human health and wellbeing while reducing human exploitation of natural resources. It is offered in a hybrid format—half of the class is delivered online, while the rest is delivered in the 

traditional face-to-face format. 

Bringing in the School of Nursing, another addition to our curriculum is a Health 

Literacy course. Faculty in education and nursing created this course collaboratively. The course requires education majors to examine issues in health, nutriVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:08 Nov 22, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\22606.TXT DENISE
25 

tion, exercise, and healthy living. Like the sustainability course, it is delivered in 

an online format. 

Collaborations among our college, the community colleges, the other State universities, and other colleges in ASU (especially arts and sciences) were necessary. We 

believe it takes a whole university and partners to create excellent teachers. 

YEAR LONG RESIDENTS—ITEACHAZ AND TQP

The college has a long history of leveraging Federal grant funds to make systematic change in the way it prepares future teachers. In 2004, the college was awarded 

a $9.97 million ‘‘Teacher Quality Enhancement’’ (TQE) grant called PDS TENET 

from the U.S. DOE. 

The objectives of the TQE grant were to: 

• Objective 1: Recruit, prepare, and retain high-quality teachers in seven highpoverty urban and remote districts in Arizona using a Professional Development 

School (PDS) model. 

• Objective 2: To ensure high-quality teaching and increased student achievement 

in these districts. 

In 2009, Teachers College was awarded a $34 million ‘‘Teacher Quality Partnership’’ grant called PDS NEXT. To prepare teachers in school districts using the Professional Development School model where students spend their entire teacher preparation program in a school district taking courses while simultaneously completing 

clinical experiences. While the TQP award was welcomed by the college, we soon 

realized that we needed to re-examine both our grant-funded and college programs 

with the goal of creating one college-wide program built upon the strengths of each 

and the needs of the preservice teachers we serve. I want to be very clear that TQE 

was the driver behind thinking about everything we do in teacher education. Once 

we started to integrate it into our college, it was like a Dominoes game. 

Improving clinical experiences meant we had to think about improving content 

which meant we had to have positive relationships with Arts and Science faculty, 

which meant we had to recruit students differently and on and on. 

By the fall of 2010, college leadership and faculty had agreed on the components 

of our reformed teacher preparation program. Utilizing key learnings from the TQE 

PDS TENET grant and initial findings from the PDS NEXT grant, we redesigned 

our teacher preparation program in a way that met the mission of the Mary Lou 

Fulton Teachers College and the students it serves, the needs of our school district 

partners and the students they serve, the knowledge and research of our respected 

and internationally recognized faculty members, and the vision of ASU, the New 

American University, which encourages entrepreneurship and innovation. 

iTeachAZ began in 2010 with a pilot of 30 students in three school districts. By 

the fall of 2011, we expanded iTeachAZ to include 436 students in 189 schools 

across 28 districts, many of which educate Arizona’s most underserved students. We 

now have 589 students in 130 schools across 29 districts. 

The signature component of iTeachAZ is a Senior Year Residency. The Senior 

Year Residency (SYR) fully integrates coursework and apprenticeship without increasing the amount of time it takes to earn a bachelor’s degree. During the SYR, 

Teacher Candidates spend 4 days each week in pre-Kindergarten through 12th 

grade classrooms and 1 day completing pedagogy courses delivered at partner 

schools. Full-time, tenured and clinical faculty members deliver these courses at the 

school site with the intent of providing Teacher Candidates with just-in-time opportunities to draw meaningful connections between their daily work in P–12 classrooms and the latest in education theory and research. 

The rapid scale-up of the iTeachAZ model required leveraging grant and college 

resources, engaging and training faculty in the new model, changing the ways in 

which we partnered with local school districts, and securing additional financial 

support for our teacher candidates so they could participate in the rigorous new program which required them to complete a full-time, 40-plus hour per week senior 

year residency prior to graduation. It required a commitment to challenge the status 

quo in teacher preparation, a license to innovate, an entrepreneurial spirit, and renegotiating university school partnerships with the focus on preparing a better 

brand of educator; one who can face the challenges of educating diverse groups of 

P–12 students in Arizona’s schools and beyond. 

The iTeachAZ model is designed to capitalize on the opportunity of having multiple adults in the room by having Teacher Candidates act as co-teachers in the 

classroom, under the guidance of highly qualified mentor teachers. With two adults 

working together in the classroom pre-Kindergarten through 8th grade students are 

afforded more opportunities for individualized attention, which will ultimately boost 

26 

the achievement rates of Arizona’s school students. We are now expanding to secondary programs. 

Teacher Candidates begin their SYR when new teachers in the district report for 

duty and follow the district calendar for the remainder of the year. The SYR experience is designed to provide Teacher Candidates with an opportunity to experience 

the rhythm of a full school year while learning the range of professional responsibilities inherent to the teaching profession. While in the classroom, Teacher Candidates work with Mentor Teachers who have undergone an application process, are 

selected by both the school and university, and complete special training in coaching 

and mentoring student teachers. In addition to co-teaching with mentor teachers 

and taking pedagogy courses, Teacher Candidates participate in district-sponsored 

professional development, faculty meeting, professional learning communities, parent-teacher conferences, and school-wide events such as open houses, athletic competitions, and musical performances that occur after school hours. 

Collaborative supervision and mentoring are hallmarks of the iTeachAZ program. 

During the senior year residency, ASU faculty, mentor teachers, district specialists, 

and administrators work together to prepare program graduates to be effective 

teachers who focus on student achievement and ultimately, remain in the teaching 

profession. Figure 1 shows the organizational structure of all iTeachAZ partnerships. As illustrated, achievement of P–12 students is central to all activities undertaken by the partners. Together, the components of the iTeachAZ partnership ensure a dynamic environment for teaching and learning which is responsive to the 

needs of all participants. 

We see districts as full and responsible partners. School districts provide Teachers 

College with a district liaison, an onsite classroom in which Teacher Candidates 

complete coursework and highly qualified mentor teachers to support 25 to 30 

Teacher Candidates per year. The role of the iTeachAZ Mentor Teacher is to serve 

as a coach who models and plans effective best teaching practices, creates a supportive classroom environment where Teacher Candidates are encouraged to take 

risks, and observes and provides specific feedback to Teacher candidates to ensure 

the preparedness of Teacher Candidates who enter the teaching profession as highly 

effective, reflective teachers. Mentors benefit from the partnership by leveraging the 

opportunity of having additional instructional leaders in the classroom to positively 

impact student learning. Additionally, mentor teachers hone leadership, coaching, 

and supervisory skills while hosting Teacher Candidates. 

Teachers College provides a full-time, onsite faculty member, known as a Site Coordinator, who works in the district supporting both Teacher Candidates and menVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:08 Nov 22, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\22606.TXT DENISE

87401-1.eps
27 

tor teachers. The iTeachAZ coordinator teaches two courses, supervises 25–30 

Teacher Candidates, serves as the college liaison for the partnership, and provides 

support to the mentor teachers involved in the program. Furthermore, Site Coordinators host quarterly governance meetings with district administrators to provide 

program updates and discuss ways in which to enhance the partnership. While the 

members of the Governing Board vary in each iTeachAZ partnership, the general 

make-up of iTeachAZ Governing Boards include the Site Coordinator, the district 

Superintendent or designee, a district Human Resource specialist, and principals of 

mentor teachers hosting Teacher Candidates. 

In addition to hosting Governing Board meetings, Site Coordinators also hold 

monthly meetings with mentor teachers and ASU faculty. These meetings focus on 

data talks where ASU faculty and mentor teachers work together to evaluate Teacher Candidate progress. Mentors also receive professional development on self-selected topics of interest to support their work with both Teacher Candidates and P– 

12 students. District partners compensate the mentor teachers for participating in 

the partnership and professional development opportunities provided by Teachers 

College faculty. Teachers College provides mentor teachers with a six-credit tuition 

waiver which may be used as payment for any course offered by ASU’s 15 colleges. 

During the SYR, Teacher Candidates participate in a consistent cycle of observation, feedback, and coaching by ASU Clinical faculty and highly qualified mentor 

teachers. Each iTeachAZ Teacher Candidate is observed and evaluated four times 

per year by ASU faculty, using eight domains from the TAP Teaching Skills, Knowledge and Responsibilities Performance Standards Rubric (National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, 2013). Each of the indicators on the TAP rubric is scored from 

1 to 5, with 1 indicating unsatisfactory performance, 3 indicating proficient performance, and 5 indicating exemplary performance. 

This rigorous competency-based evaluation process is different from those used in 

traditional teacher preparation programs. All teacher candidates are required to 

reach proficiency (i.e., score of 3) in all indicators in order to successfully complete 

the program. If a teacher candidate is not making progress toward proficiency in 

the first semester of clinical experiences, the site coordinator, mentor teacher, and 

teacher candidate work together to develop and implement an intervention plan to 

support the teacher candidate’s development. If a teacher candidate does not demonstrate proficiency by the end of the second semester, he or she will be given the 

option to repeat the residency or transfer to the college’s non-certification Educational Studies program. 

The SYR, new curriculum, and close partnerships with community colleges and 

multiple school districts across Arizona have all been a departure from the way ASU 

previously educated teachers. As a result of our bold initiative, the Mary Lou Fulton 

Teachers College is being recognized as a leader in educational reform. Education 

Week featured iTeachAZ in an article in fall 2011 (http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/11/16/12azteachlep.h31.html), and in a recent review of 2,420 teacher 

preparation programs across the country, NCTQ awarded iTeachAZ four out of four 

stars for our reformed student teaching experience (http://www.youtube.com/ 

watch?v=ulTwlki0kks). Additionally, faculty and administrators from 20 colleges 

of education, each accompanied by school district administrators, have visited 

Teachers College to learn about the components of the iTeachAZ program. This includes the Iowa’s Department of Education which is providing funding for teacher 

prep programs willing to adopt our residency program. These universities look to 

iTeachAZ as a model for reforming their teacher education programs to address the 

challenges of preparing teachers to educate who can meet the needs. 

EXAMPLES OF INNOVATIVE PRACTICES

Quest2Teach is a series of game-infused virtual learning environments unified by 

a social-professional network, designed specifically for teacher education as a means 

to bridge between educational theory and its application in the field. In 

Quest2Teach (Q2T), future educators engage their virtual personae in authentic 

teaching practices, making continual decisions with immediate individualized feedback, with the ability to fail safely, play again, and achieve success in their personalized narrative as the protagonist. In-game meters and analytics are fed back into 

the larger professional network to evolve their real-world identity across semesters 

and student teaching, leveraging badges and gamified achievement layers in order 

to track, validate and inspire real world reflection and collaborations with digital 

colleagues, locally and internationally. Quest2Teach is the first of its kind in the 

practice of teacher education, and created in-house at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers 

College (MLFTC) through a unique collaboration of Learning Scientists, Faculty, 

and our partner game-design studio. Design-based research with hundreds of 

28 

MLFTC students has shown significant learning and engagement gains in Q2T. 

Moreover, students report an increased sense of confidence in their teaching, higher 

fluency in being able to discuss and engage in these practices, and learning how ‘‘to 

actively do’’ (rather than ‘‘know about’’) these theories in practice. Quest2Teach was 

recently awarded ASU’s President’s Award for Innovation, and was also selected 

and filmed by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center (Sesame Workshop) to be featured in 

their upcoming documentary of innovative teaching practices. 

Sanford Inspire Program (SIP) at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College has also leveraged private funds in our reform efforts. The Sanford Inspire Program has developed innovative ways to attract, prepare, and support excellent teachers. We have 

developed new messages and practices for reaching out to an expanded pool of high 

school students to share information about careers and leadership opportunities in 

the field of education. The Sanford team collaborated with faculty to design resources including a collection of protocols used by instructors to help teacher candidates make the important connection between what they learn in courses and 

what they do in their classroom placements. The Sanford team has also supported 

college-wide efforts to increase the rigor and relevance of clinical experiences. This 

includes redesign of field experience courses and creation of training for mentor 

teachers who play a significant role in the development of our new teachers. The 

Sanford Inspire Program has created dozens of resources to support teacher candidates in their coursework, all of which are available to other programs via the 

Professional Learning Library. The team is now working to create online resources 

that will allow school leaders and teacher educators to provide differentiated professional development to teachers to support continuous improvement. While funding 

for this work came from a private donor, all efforts are integrated with the college 

and will be sustained once funding has ended. 

TQP (TEACHER QUALITY PARTNERSHIP) AT MLFTC IN 2014 WITH SUSTAINABILITY

The TQP grant (currently in Year 5 of 5 includes the following three objectives: 

• Increase the subject-area competency of ASU-prepared teachers through the reform of 40 lower-division subject area courses as part of the Teaching Foundations 

Project. 

• Increase the clinical competency of 600 ASU-prepared teachers through the 

iTeachAZ model (year-long student teaching residency, clinical faculty housed at 

school sites, a rigorous performance assessment process, co-teaching model, professionalism rubric). 

• Work with partner districts and the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) to turn around at least 25 historically struggling partner district schools 

in nine districts and create sites of exemplary teacher preparation in hard-to-staff 

communities. 

Due to Federal cuts to education spending, the TQP grant was significantly reduced over the 5-year period (receiving only $24.7 million of the planned $34 million). Despite this challenge the project has met or exceeded its objectives in the following ways: 

• The project not only implemented reformed teacher preparation for 9 original 

grant partners, but created a model that is now being used for all undergraduate 

teacher preparation programs at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. The project expanded its partnerships from 9 urban and rural partner school districts to 28 partner districts across the State of Arizona. The project exceeded its goal of training 

600 teachers and has currently trained more than 1,500 exemplary new teachers 

through the rigorous residency-based teacher preparation model. 

• The project developed the iTeachAZ Data Dashboard and Mobile Data Collection App that provide accurate, timely data regarding teacher candidate performance. This dashboard system is a model for other teacher preparation programs. 

• Developed the Professional Learning Library (www.pll.asu.edu), an online resource center that provides resources to in-service teachers, ASU instructors, mentor 

teachers, and teacher candidates aligned to the iTeachAZ model. The PLL also 

serves community partners, district partners, and other agencies. 

• Implemented the Teacher Assessment Performance (TAP) rubric to evaluate all 

of our candidates. 

I cannot emphasize the impact of the Federal Government role in the success of 

our programs. Not only have the additional resources been important, the ideas and 

plans we have had to implement, the support of the program officers, the need to 

bring in other thought partners has helped define our reform efforts. I have planned 

to sustain the grant resources by slowly moving positions into college budget lines 

29 

and extending the impact by finding ways to keep many of the personnel in their 

roles. 

EVALUATION OF PROGRAM AND STUDENTS

The TAP rubric, used with in-service teachers as part of the Teacher Incentive 

Fund (TIF) grant does appear to be an important contributor to and a valid measure 

of teacher influence on student achievement and their decision to remain at their 

school. As a result, we use a modified TAP rubric as a tool to measure effectiveness 

during the senior year residency, and as a potential predictor of future effectiveness 

once in a classroom. Overall, TAP scores of iTeachAZ teacher candidates are impressive, with students in their final semester typically scoring what veteran teachers 

in TIF schools score. 

• When comparing observation scores, teacher candidates show teaching skills 

comparable to veteran teachers. Specifically, scores on Instructional Planning and 

Activities/Materials were almost identical (teacher candidates, N = 489, compared to 

experienced teachers, N = 1,442). 

• During their senior year residency, MLFTC teacher candidates achieved an average score within the Proficient range on each of the eight performance indicators 

measured by the TAP rubric. 

Teacher candidates, on average, have an overall observation score of 3.17 which 

is higher than the overall average of 3.04 for in-service teachers (N = 1,669) in a related ASU grant. 

We have systematically worked within ASU and community colleges throughout 

the State of Arizona to increase rigor in freshman and sophomore level classes. Effective in Fall, 2011 we have strategically reformed 147 classes in English, Math, 

Science, Social Studies, and the arts. Over 2,500 students have been impacted by 

these classes that strive to increase content knowledge in core areas for future 

teachers. 

We use several strategies to gain information about the performance of our students post-graduation including: (a) our graduates’ performance on State certification tests, (b) value-added statistical analyses of our graduates’ student achievement, (c) career ladder progression, and (d) principal perceptions of our graduates 

as compared to a State average. 

The most recent AEPA scores indicate that 98.5 percent of our teacher candidates 

achieved proficiency and became eligible for Arizona certification. Our graduates’ 

pass rate was higher than the State average in Social Studies and equal to the 

State average in Elementary Education, English, Art, Music, Special Education, and 

Secondary Professional Knowledge. Scores of the Secondary Professional Knowledge 

assessment, revealed that the pass rate of ASU teacher candidates was slightly 

higher than the State average. 

Recently the Arizona Department of Education asked 1,200 principals to evaluate 

their beginning teachers on a variety of essential teaching skills. As can be seen in 

Table 1, our graduates outperformed the State average on every indicator. 

Table 1.—Percent Meeting or Exceeding Principal Expectations For Beginning Teachers 

(N = 1,197) 

Item ASU Arizona 

Demonstrates in-depth knowledge and understanding about the subject(s) he/she teaches ..................... 87.8 86.4 

Creates a classroom environment conductive to student learning ............................................................... 83.5 81.9 

Designs lessons aligned to the academic standards .................................................................................... 88.5 86.3 

Implements research-based learning theories and instructional strategies ................................................. 80.5 77.8 

Uses a variety of developmentally appropriate strategies to engage students in their learning ................ 80.7 78.6 

Uses a variety of appropriate strategies to support literacy development ................................................... 79.1 78.3 

Effectively integrates technology into instruction to support student learning ............................................ 80.3 78.9 

Incorporates English Language Development (ELD) standards into instruction ........................................... 74.0 72.7 

Uses multiple methods for assessing student learning ................................................................................ 82.9 81.5 

Differentiates instruction to meet the learning needs of all students ......................................................... 75.5 73.9 

Note. Sixty-three percent response rate. 

In 2011–12, 556 (67.3 percent) Teachers College graduates served in 318 AZ Title 

I schools, which is 26.0 percent of the total AZ Title I schools (according to the 2012 

ED Facts State Profile for Arizona released by the U.S. Department of Education). 

In other words, there is a recent MLFTC graduate employed in approximately one 

out of every four Title I schools in Arizona. 

30 

The Arizona Department of Education projects that new high school requirements 

have led to a statewide shortage in math and science teachers. The Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College has responded to this challenge by producing 126 certified or 

licensed secondary math and science teachers during AY 2011–12 alone. As illustrated in the graphs below, our math program enrollment has seen an 11-fold increase from 2007 to 2012 and science program enrollment has seen even more 

growth, with an 86-fold increase from 2007 to 2012. 


87401-2.eps
31 

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TQP

Based on our experience in leveraging Federal funds to reform the largest teachers college in the Nation, we do have recommendations for improvements to the 

Higher Education Act to help institutions of higher education strengthen their 

teacher preparation programs: 

1. Emphasis on institutionalization and sustainability requires: 

a. Evidence of ‘‘buy-in’’ from the university president, chief academic officer, 

dean and other colleges. 

b. Plans to scale the model within a given timeframe. 

c. Articulation and demonstration of how the grant funds will include college 

faculty and administrators in the structure of the project and in the curriculum redesign. 

2. Integrate with existing academic programs and their faculty to achieve program 

quality and maximize grant impact. 

3. Include undergraduates in ‘‘residency’’ programs because currently the Federal 

Government only allows stipends for graduate students. 

MLFTC has worked through obstacles to improve the lives of children in schools 

all over the State. There are many lessons learned. 

They include: 

1. Using TQP to scale up rapidly with no excuses. 

2. Some people don’t want to be part of a reform effort so they chose to do other 

things. 

3. Team effort is not a slogan but a necessity. 

4. This work has become more difficult with the de-professionalization of teachers. 

5. We are fortunate to be teachers. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Koerner. 

Mr. Daly. 

STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY DALY, PRESIDENT OF THE NEW 

TEACHER PROJECT, BROOKLYN, NY 

Mr. DALY. Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for having me here today. As you heard in 

the opening, I work for The New Teacher Project, which is a nonprofit organization that works with districts and States on basically 

one problem: If we all agree that low-income and minority students 

should have access to effective teachers, what would it actually 

take to do that? 

In a bunch of ways, our organization is different than some of 

the other folks represented up here. I’m a little bit embarrassed to 

be the only one that’s a Mister instead of a Doctor, compared to my 

colleagues at the table. But part of that is because our design is 

not to be housed in an institution of higher education, but rather 

to work on the ground with districts and States and to partner 

with them to find teachers that can be successful in low-income 

communities. 

So there’s a few things that you should know about us. First, we 

don’t believe that teachers are the problem but the solution. And 

we have a nerdy, unbridled passion for helping people learn the art 

of great teaching. 

Second, we are not an institution of higher education. We’re a 

nonprofit organization founded by and composed primarily of 

former classroom teachers. We don’t focus on credits or seat time. 

What matters to us exclusively is how our teachers perform when 

they’re in the classroom. 

We do not have a collection of permanent faculty members with 

terminal degrees. It’s more important to us that the folks who are 

instructors in our programs were effective teachers in the recent 

32 

past. So we’re looking for folks that have been out of the classroom 

no more than a couple of years, who know what today’s current realities are and who also understand today’s current learning standards. 

We work at scale to prepare the teachers that our districts need. 

Since 1997, we have prepared over 50,000 career changers and recent college graduates for the classroom. Almost all of those folks 

teach math, science, special education, or bilingual education. 

We diversify the workforce. One of the things that our programs 

are particularly successful at doing is attracting African-American, 

Latino, and male candidates into the profession. 

We believe that we are accountable for the results of our graduates, and we track the results of our graduates. Once they enter 

the classroom, we assess each one of our teachers across multiple 

dimensions, and only those who are getting results in the classroom are permitted to have a career in education. 

So just to be clear, our relationship with our teachers does not 

end when they become teachers. In their first years in the classroom, we assess them, and we refuse to give them permanent certification if they’re not doing a good job. That means that the districts can no longer employ them. I’d be happy to talk more about 

that. 

It is sometimes a tug of war with our districts because they want 

to keep many of the folks that we prepared that we do not believe 

should continue teaching. But for us, that was the only way that 

we could ever be confident that we were putting our name to folks 

who are going to do right by students in the long term. 

We evolve our programs rapidly based on what we see in the 

field. Because we have more information now than we ever had before about what’s going on with our teachers, including surveys of 

their own students, it means that each year, we make changes to 

our training. 

We care deeply about how our teachers perform in the classroom, 

and we believe that policymakers should, too. Currently, though, as 

you all have heard already, I think, from the other folks, the Federal oversight of teacher preparation has focused on tracking various inputs and process milestones. But decades of research have 

not shown very much of a relationship between the things that we 

currently track and performance in the classroom. 

So as a field, we actually know way too much about who enters 

the teaching profession and not nearly enough about what happens 

when they get there. So, in short, we’re tracking the wrong stuff. 

There have been a lot of great ideas—I think you heard some of 

them already—to change this. Senator Bennet has a great bill 

called the GREAT Act that would push us in that direction as well. 

But there are two things that I would ask you to consider today. 

One is to make a grand level swap around title II. And instead of 

saying, ‘‘Which stuff could we cut out of title II reporting,’’ start 

with a blank slate and say, 

‘‘Do we need to know any of this stuff that we’re currently 

collecting under title II, and how much of that would we give 

up if we could know one thing, which is can we establish that 

every program that prepares teachers needs to know how they 

33 

perform in the classroom and needs to be able to track that on 

an ongoing basis?’’ 

I think there are limits to how much from here you want to tell 

them exactly and what they must do with that information. But 

most universities haven’t the slightest ability to know, because, as 

we’ve heard, people teach across State lines, people teach in large 

districts, small districts, and in many of those districts, there’s no 

effort currently to collect that information. 

It’s much easier for us because we tend to work with large districts. So we know that if we recruit teachers for Chicago, those 

teachers are going to be in Chicago public schools. We can go to 

Chicago public schools and find out how they’re doing. It would be 

much more difficult if they were in Wisconsin and Michigan and 

Indiana as well. 

I think the one role that you all uniquely can play is to make 

it possible for programs to get information on how their candidates 

are doing on a short-term basis so they can incorporate that. I 

would trade almost everything that’s currently in title II if we 

could get that. 

The second major change is around title IV. We now have so 

many different kinds of programs that did not exist a generation 

ago. You’ve heard about the effort for the CAEP standards to apply 

to all of them, which I think is a great idea. But alternative programs that are not based in universities face a couple of permanent 

structural disadvantages when it comes to making access to teaching affordable. 

One of them is that our candidates do not qualify for Federal financial aid. So in many States, we can certify the teachers, we can 

provide them their course work, we can decide whether they have 

a job or not, but the costs that the candidates incur to go through 

the program—they cannot get financial aid to subsidize those costs. 

That means that there are States where some of the highest performing programs are out of reach of financial aid. 

We also, for example, in our programs can give AmeriCorps education awards to the candidates that go through our program as an 

incentive for them taking on a life of service as teachers. However, 

they cannot use those AmeriCorps education awards to offset the 

cost of becoming certified through our programs. 

So we often have folks who are mid-career, who worked hard to 

pay off their loans, and then when they got to the point where they 

wanted to enter teaching, they were unable to use the AmeriCorps 

awards that they were using to offset those costs. So they end up 

holding an award that went unused and paying out-of-pocket. 

If we could accept AmeriCorps education awards, and if our candidates had access to financial aid, we could grow and expand to 

many more places. Without those sorts of things, there’s simply 

going to be a ceiling where the economics of moving into rural 

areas, the economics of moving into areas where the district cannot 

pay the cost of creating teachers will limit where we go and what 

we do. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Daly follows:] 

34 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY DALY

My name is Tim Daly, and I am the president of TNTP, a national non-profit 

dedicated to ending the injustice of educational inequality. Founded in 1997 as The 

New Teacher Project, we work with schools, districts, and States to provide excellent 

teachers to the students who need them most and to advance policies and practices 

that ensure effective teaching in every classroom. We are one of the Nation’s largest 

teacher preparation programs, having trained over 50,000 educators to serve in lowincome communities. 

We have learned one thing above all: it is very difficult to predict in advance who 

will be successful in the classroom, but a teacher’s early track record is an exceptionally good predictor of his/her later effectiveness. Teachers who start strong are able 

to grow quickly with experience; new teachers who struggle with critical skills like 

classroom management rarely learn how to do it over time. 

We therefore recommend two major shifts as Congress considers reauthorization 

of the Higher Education Act: 

1. Congress should redesign the accountability measures for teacher preparation 

providers, replacing the current focus on admission criteria and program completion 

to instead emphasize whether the candidates those programs prepare are effective 

once they are in the classroom, replacing current measures that focus on program 

admission and completion. The true measure of a program should be the performance of its graduates with real students in real schools. 

2. Congress should embrace and support high-quality, non-university preparation 

providers—those with a track record of success and a commitment to diversifying 

the new teacher pool—by enabling participants in such programs to access Federal 

student aid. At present, some of the most successful teacher pipelines available to 

districts face a permanent, structural disadvantage relative to traditional university 

programs. 

IN SUMMARY

We believe that we—and other innovative teacher preparation programs, traditional and alternative—are rapidly discovering new approaches to better prepare 

teachers for success early in their careers. As Congress considers reauthorization of 

the Higher Education Act, it should take this moment to reset expectations for all 

programs to account for these new discoveries: demanding data that focuses on the 

outcomes that really matter—student success—and enabling teacher candidates to 

access the same set of financing tools regardless of where they seek their preparation. We look forward to helping Congress in any way to make such changes, and 

I look forward to your questions today. 

Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the committee for having me here 

today. 

My name is Tim Daly, and I am the president of TNTP, a national non-profit 

dedicated to ending the injustice of educational inequality. Founded in 1997 as The 

New Teacher Project, we work with schools, districts, and States to provide excellent 

teachers to the students who need them most and to advance policies and practices 

that ensure effective teaching in every classroom. Given our organizational mission 

and work, we are pleased to have the opportunity to share our expertise in preparing teachers for early career effectiveness, and to offer suggestions for how Federal policy can encourage all programs to adopt policies that promote great teaching 

and enable successful programs to grow. 

TNTP is one of the largest teacher preparation programs in the United States. 

To date, we have recruited or trained more than 50,000 teachers to work in some 

of the highest-need schools in the country. Through this experience and through research into teacher performance across several large districts, we have learned one 

thing above all: it is very difficult to predict in advance who will be successful in 

the classroom, but a teacher’s early track record is an exceptionally good predictor 

of his/her later effectiveness. Teachers who start strong are able to grow quickly 

with experience; new teachers who struggle with critical skills like classroom management rarely learn how to do it over time. This is true whether we looked at our 

own teachers or those prepared by other programs. 

Given that evidence, all teacher preparation programs should focus on helping 

teacher candidates master the skills they need to create a positive learning environment from their very first day in the classroom. There is no standard program design that will guarantee excellence—teaching is too complex to follow a rote training 

model—but we are certain that the current measures that Congress requires to 

track programs under title II do not tell us whether programs are succeeding in 

35 

their missions, and don’t encourage States to set meaningful bars for quality in the 

preparation programs they approve. 

We therefore recommend two major shifts as Congress considers reauthorization 

of the Higher Education Act: 

1. Congress should redesign the accountability measures for teacher preparation 

providers, replacing the current focus on admission criteria and program completion 

to instead emphasize whether the candidates those programs prepare are effective 

once they are in the classroom, replacing current measures that focus on program 

admission and completion. The true measure of a program should be the performance of its graduates with real students in real schools. 

2. Congress should embrace and support high-quality, non-university preparation 

providers—those with a track record of success and a commitment to diversifying 

the new teacher pool—by enabling participants in such programs to access Federal 

student aid. At present, some of the most successful teacher pipelines available to 

districts face a permanent, structural disadvantage relative to traditional university 

programs. 

TNTP AND ITS TEACHING FELLOWS PROGRAMS

First, let me say a little about our organization and our history in teacher preparation. Since 2000, TNTP has operated teacher preparation programs in districts 

around the country. We began in New York City, where nearly a quarter of active 

math, science, and special education teachers started their careers through our 

Teaching Fellows program. We currently operate in 12 States, plus the District of 

Columbia, recruiting over 2,000 teachers to hard-to-staff schools annually. In brief, 

we train more teachers each year than all but the largest State university schools 

of education. 

Admittedly, we are different than most institutions that train teachers: 

• We are not an institute of higher education. Instead, we have worked to develop 

our own program, TNTP Academy, to provide the training and support new teachers 

need. Our program is strong enough that we have secured approval to certify our 

own teachers in most of the States where we work, without a relationship to a college or university. • We do not focus on credits or seat time. Our teacher candidates teach full-time 

during the day while earning their certificate during nights and weekends; as such, 

we have to make the most out of the limited time we have with each candidate. 

To do so, we prioritize practical skills that will help them succeed immediately. • We do not have a collection of permanent faculty with terminal degrees. We hire 

effective classroom teachers from the communities we serve to share their knowledge and real-world teaching experience with our candidates; we believe that the 

people best suited to train and coach new teachers to become effective are those who 

have done it themselves and who have a track record of helping high-need students 

make significant learning gains. • We work at scale to prepare the teachers districts need. All of our programs operate in partnership with districts and States to recruit and train teachers in hardto-staff grades and subjects. We seek candidates who are eager to take on these 

challenging assignments and prepare them specifically to work in high-need schools. • We believe we are accountable for the results our teachers get in the classroom— 

and track it. We do not train our teachers and send them out into schools, thinking 

our job is complete. Instead, we use a variety of evidence from their classrooms to 

assess the performance of our Fellows throughout their first year, ensuring that 

they are developing critical skills and getting results for their students they serve, 

and use multiple measures to assess their performance. If they are not developing 

into effective teachers, we do not grant them final certification. • We evolve our programs rapidly based on what we see in the field. We are not 

content to train teachers who are middle of the pack. We use the data we collect 

on our teachers each year to make changes—some small, some large—to ensure that 

each cohort of teachers we recruit will be better prepared and capable of leading 

students in our partner districts to even greater success. 

OUR APPROACH TO PREPARING TEACHERS

That last point—on evolving our programs—is how we learned that critical lesson 

about the importance of a teacher’s first year. Our programs haven’t always operated the way that they do now. Originally, our programs looked much like every 

other teacher preparation provider: we provided a broad, extensive pre-service training for our Fellows, and then assumed that while our graduates would struggle 

mightily at first, they would become effective with hard work and support from their 

peers and school leaders. 

36 

1 ‘‘Leap Year: Assessing and Supporting First-Year Teachers,’’ TNTP, 2013. 

As increasingly rigorous evaluations of teachers were completed, however, we 

found that our Fellows were generally matching—but not consistently outpacing— 

the performance of other new teachers (whether from traditional or alternative 

routes). That wasn’t good enough for us. We knew that average performance was 

not sufficient to train great teachers. 

Using the latest research and our own experiences, we sought to rebuild our preservice training program from the ground up to ensure that teachers master the 

most essential instructional skills first. With that foundation in place, they are prepared to make a difference on day one and poised to rapidly develop advanced teaching skills during their first year. We call this approach Fast Start. It is grounded 

in three key principles: a clear curriculum focused only on the most essential skills; 

intensive practice of these skills, and; specific feedback on what teachers should do 

differently the very next lesson. 

• Focus: Fast Start focuses on four critical skills most closely linked to first-year 

success: delivering lessons clearly, maintaining high academic standards, maintaining high behavioral standards and maximizing instructional time. 

• Practice: Like athletes or musicians, teachers need to learn by doing—but 

most programs spend too much time on theories about teaching. In Fast Start, 

teachers spend 26 hours in intensive, hands-on practice activities beyond the time 

they spend actually teaching in real, summer school classrooms. 

• Feedback: Every Fast Start participant benefits from 32 hours of one-on-one 

and group coaching to help them constantly fine-tune their use of essential instructional techniques. 

Once in the classroom, we offer coaching and support that is tailored to the individual needs of each Fellow as they advance toward mastery-level skills. We also 

embed practice of those advanced skills into the content-oriented seminars Fellows 

must complete during their first year so that they can practice new teaching techniques at the same time as they bolster their pedagogical expertise in their particular teaching subject. 

What we’ve learned so far is promising. 

1. First, teachers can improve rapidly during even a 5-week pre-service training 

program if given enough opportunities to practice. In each of our four critical focus 

competency areas, participants were more than twice as likely to demonstrate proficiency by the end of training as they were at the outset of training. 

2. Second, teachers who master these essential skills during pre-service training 

are more likely to be successful in their first full year in the classroom. Teachers 

who performed better during Fast Start were more likely to meet our standards for 

first-year success at the end of the year. 

3. Finally, preparation programs should view pre-service training like a training 

camp where not everyone will make the cut, because actual classroom performance 

is a powerful predictor of future success. In the summer of 2012, we only recommended around two-thirds of our Fast Start participants to begin teaching. 

THE FIRST YEAR IS THE MOST IMPORTANT

Why do we place so much emphasis on teacher’s performance in the first year? 

Because our experience, and the best research in the field, suggests that a teacher’s 

first year is the most important year of their career. As we detailed last year in our 

report Leap Year,1 not all new teachers struggle; they perform at different levels 

and improve at different rates. We also learned that teachers’ initial performance 

predicts their future performance; teachers with higher observation scores at the beginning of the year were more likely to be strong performers at the end of the year 

as well. Most importantly, first-year teachers who are purposeful in their growth, 

responsive to feedback, and focused on student understanding develop the fastest, 

while those who struggle may even regress in their performance over the course of 

the first year. 

Using Fast Start, we have become one of the first teacher preparation programs 

in the country to recommend teachers for certification based mainly on their performance in the classroom. Our evaluation model, the Assessment of Classroom Effectiveness (ACE), considers a wide variety of evidence—classroom observations, student surveys, principal ratings, and student achievement data (where available)— 

to create the fullest-possible picture of teacher performance. Our teachers receive 

ACE observations throughout the year and the model is designed to spur rapid 

growth by ensuring that teachers always know how they are doing and what they 

need to do to improve. 

37 

2 Atteberry, A. Loeb, S., & Wyckoff, J. (2013). Do first impressions matter? Improvement in 

early career teacher effectiveness. Calder Working Paper 90. Washington, DC: National Center 

for the Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER). 3Gordon, R., Kane, T., & Staiger, D. (2006). Identifying effective teachers using performance 

on the job. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. 4 Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA) § 205–208, 29 U.S.C. § 1022d-g (2008). 

As with Fast Start, teachers must reach a rigorous performance standard before 

we will recommend them for certification. In 2012, only 82 percent of our Fellows 

received certification; the others were either extended with the opportunity to continue building skills, or denied certification and removed. 

What’s important, though, is that early success is remarkably predictive of success 

in future years. A study2 released last year by researchers at the University of Virginia and Stanford found that for both math and English Language Arts teachers, 

those who performed well in their first year were likely to continue to have higher 

student outcomes than their peers for each of the next 4 years. Conversely, teachers 

whose results were in the lowest quintile in their first year were likely to remain 

there for the next 4 years as well. 

As a result, we think that policymakers should encourage programs to help firstyear teachers focus on mastering essential skills first. Although most of this will need 

to be done by States, who are responsible for approving programs, the Federal Government can play an important role by encouraging States (through language in the 

Higher Education Act as well as via competitive grants) to adopt expectations for 

first-year teaching performance. Programs that are accountable for the eventual performance of their graduates will attend to it more carefully. 

Policymakers at any level should not dictate how programs help their teacher candidates meet those high expectations. The best research currently available suggests 

there are typically few meaningful differences between preparation programs or 

routes to the classroom in terms of future student achievement—the biggest differences in effectiveness are found within programs rather than between them.3

Teaching is a complex profession, and there is no one-size-fits-all model for teacher 

preparation in which all potential teacher candidates will thrive. Candidates should 

have the freedom to choose programs they believe are best for their professional 

growth, so long as States hold all programs—traditional or alternative—to a common bar of quality. 

A NEW VISION FOR TITLE II

If a State were to set such standards today, however, they would likely not be 

meaningful. In the absence of robust State data systems, the only common set of 

data collected across all teacher preparation programs comes via the reporting requirements in Title II of the Higher Education Act.4 These provisions require teacher preparation providers and States to report a wide range of data on an annual 

basis—mostly related to program admission or completion requirements and examination pass rates. 

This data, however, does little to describe whether graduates of a preparation program are effective once in the classroom, or whether their provider had anything 

to do with their success. For example, title II reports do nothing to capture efforts 

by programs to ensure quality of their candidates. TNTP’s Fellows programs and 

other alternative preparation pathways, such as rigorous residency programs, will 

proactively exit candidates who cannot demonstrate effectiveness. Title II reporting 

requirements do not capture this nuance. 

Most importantly, though, the title II reporting requirements fail to focus the attention of both providers and teacher candidates on what matters most: effectiveness in the classroom. Congress should revise the title II reporting requirements to 

require States and providers to track and report the evaluation ratings of teachers 

during their first years of teaching after program completion. Where such systems 

use multiple measures of teacher effectiveness, the most granular level of data 

should be shared wherever possible. Where feasible, States should also share teacher retention data with programs, including the cause for separation where warranted so programs know whether separation was voluntary, layoff-related, or performance-related. 

Such transparency, combined with rigorous implementation of a meaningful evaluation system, provides a rare win for nearly all parties: 

• Teacher preparation providers will collect information that can more meaningfully inform how they prepare and support their candidates, encouraging improvement over time; 

38 

5 HEA § 401(c)(4)(B), 20 U.S.C. 1070a(c)(4)(B) (2008). 

6 HEA § 412, 20 U.S.C. 1070g et seq. (2008). 

• Teacher candidates who have options on where they obtain their preparation 

will have useful comparison data to select their program; • District officials and school leaders can use the comparison data to identify 

which program pipelines they should pursue for new teachers; and • Congress and the States will benefit from improved information to guide further 

policymaking, and—as warranted—prioritize funding for programs with a successful 

track record of teacher preparation over providers who fail to consistently prepare 

candidates for success. 

ENABLING PROGRAM CHOICE VIA TITLE IV

For teacher candidates to have meaningful choices in where they receive their 

preparation, however, providers need to be on an equal playing field. This is the 

other significant step Congress can take to enable strong teacher preparation providers to thrive—Congress should allow all programs with a track record of success 

to participate in Federal student aid programs. Presently, the Higher Education Act treats programs based at institutes of higher 

education and those operated outside of such institutions very differently. Though 

all programs that operate their own certification program must comply with the reporting requirements of title II, only accredited institutions of higher education may 

offer Federal student assistance under title IV. This places an unreasonable limitation on the choices available to teacher candidates with no clear justification. Nonuniversity-based programs are often cost-effective for candidates who need to continue to work while pursuing their teaching credential, especially if they want to 

begin teaching immediately. Allowing such programs to participate in title IV programs—including both grants under Part A and Federal loans under Parts B, D, 

E, and F—would enable candidates to choose the program that best suits their overall interests and not just their immediate financial limitations. 

This limit on eligibility also counteracts the purpose of some of the stated goals 

of title IV’s grant programs. For example, Congress specifically states that students 

with demonstrated financial need who have already earned a bachelor’s degree may 

use a Pell Grant for a teacher certification program that does not lead to a graduate 

degree but does meet a State’s requirements for preparation that leads to certification.5 Similar provisions are in place around TEACH grants, which are available 

to any candidate with an undergraduate track record of academic success willing to 

commit to teaching for 4 years in a high-need school.6 In other words—programs 

like ours, and candidates like ours. However, because title IV places a blanket limitation on the use of title IV grant funds to institutes of higher education, candidates 

cannot use grants from either of those programs to complete a non-university preparation program. 

IN SUMMARY

We believe that we—and other innovative teacher preparation programs, traditional and alternative—are rapidly discovering new approaches to better prepare 

teachers for success early in their careers. As Congress considers reauthorization of 

the Higher Education Act, it should take this moment to reset expectations for all 

programs to account for these new discoveries: demanding data that focuses on the 

outcomes that really matter—student success—and enabling teacher candidates to 

access the same set of financing tools regardless of where they seek their preparation. We look forward to helping Congress in any way to make such changes, and 

I look forward to your questions today. 

The CHAIRMAN. Very provocative. Thank you very much, Mr. 

Daly. 

Dr. Burns. 

STATEMENT OF JEANNE M. BURNS, Ph.D., ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER OF TEACHER AND LEADERSHIP INITIATIVES, 

LOUISIANA BOARD OF REGENTS, BATON ROUGE, LA 

Ms. BURNS. Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Alexander, and 

members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify 

this afternoon about teacher preparation in Louisiana and our ongoing commitment to place an effective new teacher in every classVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:08 Nov 22, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\22606.TXT DENISE
39 

room. My name is Jeanne Burns. I work for the Board of Regents, 

and I work with all of the universities within the State. 

Louisiana is a State where committed stakeholders have come together and supported the work that Congress wanted States to do 

with the previous reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. We 

did it because of a commitment to improve the achievement of children in our State. We did not initially have the capacity to do what 

I am about to describe. But through stakeholder engagement, we 

developed that capacity. 

Our efforts to improve teacher preparation began in 1999–2000, 

and we have sustained it and further expanded the work across 

three Governors, three commissioners of higher education, and 

three State superintendents. The work has been supported by our 

Board of Regents, our Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and, in addition to that, we have had State leaders, university leaders, faculty in the colleges of arts and sciences and education, K through 12 partners, and we have had community partners who have supported this work. 

The success we are experiencing today would not have occurred 

without this broad-based support. I cannot stress that enough. 

Our work began by creating a Blue Ribbon Commission for 

Teacher Quality that was composed of 36 stakeholders. The commission identified 70 recommendations pertaining to improving 

teacher quality the first year, and then recommended 40 recommendations the second year to improve educational leadership. 

We used those recommendations in order to obtain the Title II 

Teacher Quality State Enhancement Grant to support Teacher 

Preparation Transformation 1.0. This was a wise investment of 

Federal funds. 

The State also secured funds from the Carnegie Corporation of 

New York and the Wallace Foundation to support the reforms. Our 

State boards created and implemented more rigorous State policies 

for licensure and approval of teacher preparation programs. All undergraduate and graduate programs were redesigned—all, not 

some—and national experts were used to evaluate all programs. 

All redesigned programs that met the more rigorous State expectations were approved by the two boards, and all pre-redesigned 

programs were terminated. That meant that those programs no 

longer existed by specific dates. Louisiana created and implemented a teacher preparation accountability system that used multiple measures to examine teacher preparation. We were one of the 

States that did identify at-risk and low performing programs. 

In addition, Dr. George Noell from Louisiana State University 

created a value-added teacher preparation assessment model that 

linked growth of learning of children to new teachers to the teacher 

preparation programs, and we implemented it. Dr. Noell later 

adapted that model to develop a value-added model that is now 

being used for all teachers as part of our State teacher evaluation 

system. In 2011, higher ed adopted that model as our model as 

well. 

Value-added results and other results for redesigned programs 

are now reported to the public, and our teacher preparation programs now have drill-down data to improve their programs. All of 

40 

our universities are now NCATE and TEAC accredited, and we are 

pursuing CAEP accreditation. All of them are. 

This has been a complicated and very time consuming process. 

I cannot stress that enough. However, we now have data to show 

that we are impacting student achievement within our schools and 

that our universities are addressing the needs that were identified 

in 1999–2000. 

We have now moved on to Teacher Preparation Transformation 

2.0. We now have an NTEP grant where we are now reexamining 

what we’re doing for licensure as well as program approval. In addition, we have a grant from the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors 

where our universities are integrating new college and career-ready 

standards and assessments into the teacher prep curriculum. 

The Higher Education Act has played an important role in holding States accountable. But many of the measures that we now 

must report on an annual basis are time consuming and they’re 

meaningless. Therefore, I have just two very brief recommendations. 

One, we do need to have attention given to the purpose of the 

reporting that’s being done for the title II annual reporting. We 

need to be identifying indicators that truly measure the purpose 

that we are stating, and we need to look at aspects of teacher preparation that we consider to be important. We need to have indicators that are meaningful. The new CAEP indicators are an example 

of some of the indicators that could be used for future reporting. 

We need to have funds that will not only support innovation on 

campuses, but we also need to have funds that will support innovation statewide. That’s what helped our State to be able to do the 

systemic change that occurred within the State. 

And then last, as far as accountability is concerned, you need to 

give States the flexibility to determine the best process in order to 

examine accountability within the individual States. 

Last, please, please encourage stakeholder involvement and engagement when title II funds go to States. That is what helps to 

sustain the reforms. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Burns follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JEANNE M. BURNS, PH.D 

SUMMARY

Louisiana is a State where committed stakeholders have come together and supported the work that Congress wanted States to do with the previous reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Our work to improve teacher preparation in Louisiana began in 1999–2000 and has been sustained and further expanded across 

three Governors, three commissioners of Higher Education, three State superintendents, State boards, State agencies, university leaders, university faculty, private providers, PK–12 partners, parents, and business/community partners over a 14-year 

time period. 

The work began by using 70 recommendations developed by Louisiana’s Blue Ribbon Commission for Teacher Quality to obtain a $3.2 million Title II Teacher Quality State Enhancement Grant from the U.S. Department of Education to implement 

systemic reforms. This was a wise investment of Federal funds toward the improvement of teacher preparation in Louisiana. 

Through the use of these and matching funds, Louisiana embarked upon Teacher 

Preparation Transformation 1.0 that impacted public universities, private universities, and private providers who offered teacher preparation programs. During 

2001–14, more rigorous State policies were adopted, all teacher preparation proVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:08 Nov 22, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\22606.TXT DENISE
41 

grams were redesigned, national experts evaluated the programs, pre-redesign programs were terminated, and only programs that met the high expectations were approved for implementation. 

Accountability measures and growth in student learning measures were developed 

and used to examine the effectiveness of the redesigned teacher preparation programs. This has been complicated and very challenging work; however, data now 

exist to indicate that the systemic reforms were effective. Louisiana is now embarking upon Teacher Preparation 2.0 to address changing needs that exist in 2014. 

The Higher Education Act has had an important role in moving States in the direction of collecting data for accountability purposes and reporting results to the 

public. However, many of the indicators that institutions and States must now submit for title II annual reporting are excessive and lack meaning. Five recommendations for the reauthorization have been identified. 

1. Expand investment in teacher quality innovation at campus and State levels. 

2. Clearly identify a purpose for title II reporting and align evidence with the purpose. 

3. Collect a concise but meaningful set of indicators for title II reporting. 

4. Allow States to create their own accountability systems. 

5. Set clear expectations for active stakeholder engagement. 

Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Alexander, and members of the committee, 

thank you for the opportunity to testify this afternoon on teacher preparation and 

Louisiana’s ongoing commitment to place an effective new teacher in every classroom. My name is Jeanne Burns, and I am the associate commissioner for Teacher and 

Leadership Initiatives for the Louisiana Board of Regents. The Board of Regents is 

a State agency that is responsible for a wide range of planning and policymaking 

activities and coordinates the work of our four public university systems. As you will 

see in my testimony, our State leaders, university campuses, private providers, and 

many State partners truly understand that ‘‘Teacher Preparation Matters.’’ 

We are a State where committed stakeholders have come together and supported 

the work that Congress wanted States to do with the previous reauthorization of 

the Higher Education Act. Our efforts to improve teacher preparation in Louisiana 

began in 1999–2000 and have been sustained and further expanded across three 

Governors (Governor Bobby Jindal, former governor Kathleen Blanco, and former 

governor Mike Foster), three commissioners of Higher Education (Commissioner Jim 

Purcell, former commissioner Sally Clausen, and former commissioner E. Joseph 

Savoie), and three State superintendents (State superintendent John White, former 

State superintendent Paul Pastorek, and former State superintendent Cecil Picard). 

It has been supported by members of our Board of Regents and Board of Elementary 

and Secondary Education. It has also been supported by our university chancellors/ 

presidents, vice chancellors, college of arts/sciences and education deans, colleges of 

arts/sciences and education faculty, PK–12 school partners, private providers, parents, business partners, and community partners. The success we are experiencing 

today would not have occurred without this broad-based support. 

Our work began by creating a Blue Ribbon Commission for Teacher Quality that 

was composed of 36 stakeholders representing the partners I have already discussed. The Commission identified 70 recommendations during the first year it met 

in 1999–2000 to improve teacher quality and identified 40 additional recommendations in 2000–2001 to improve educational leaders. The State used the Commission’s recommendations to successfully obtain a $3.2 

million Title II Teacher Quality State Enhancement Grant from the U.S. Department of Education to implement systemic reforms from 2000–2005 that impacted all 

public and private university teacher preparation programs in Louisiana. This was 

a wise investment of Federal funds toward the improvement of teacher preparation 

in Louisiana. 

Through the use of these and matching funds, Louisiana embarked upon Teacher 

Preparation Transformation 1.0 that impacted public universities, private universities, and private providers who offered teacher preparation programs. Our State 

boards created and implemented rigorous State policies for teacher licensure and 

higher expectations for teacher preparation approval. All public and private universities created redesign teams that included college of education faculty, college of 

arts/sciences/humanities faculty, and K–12 school/district partners to redesign all 

undergraduate and graduate teacher preparation programs. National experts were 

used to evaluate all redesigned programs to ensure that high State and national expectations were being met. During the evaluation, some university programs were 

not recommended for approval, and some universities voluntarily chose to no longer 

42 

offer programs in specific certification areas for they lacked the strength needed to 

be approved through the evaluation process. This self-evaluation eliminated very 

weak programs. 

All redesigned programs that met the more rigorous State expectations were approved by the Board of Regents and Board of Elementary and Secondary Education 

for implementation, and all pre-redesign programs were terminated by specific 

dates. This process occurred during the time period of 2001–10. 

During 2002–5, Louisiana created and implemented a Teacher Preparation Accountability System that used multiple measures to examine the effectiveness of 

teacher preparation programs and assigned five labels based upon performance. Labels of ‘‘at-risk’’ and ‘‘low performing’’ were assigned to three institutions and all 

three demonstrated improvements during the next 2 years for the labels to be removed. A need developed to revise the system after Hurricane Katrina, and ongoing 

discussions have occurred about changing the system as new data have become 

available. 

Researchers from Louisiana were instrumental in helping the State develop and 

use data that linked growth of learning of children to new teachers to their teacher 

preparation programs. Dr. George Noell from Louisiana State University developed 

a Louisiana Value-added Teacher Preparation Assessment Model that was piloted 

from 2003–6 and fully implemented from 2006–11. Value-added results for redesigned programs were reported to the public, and teacher preparation programs 

were provided drill-down data that helped them to identify the specific grade spans, 

subject areas, and content strands where their programs were demonstrating 

strengths and relative weaknesses for program improvement. Redesigned programs 

that performed below the average performance of other teacher preparation programs were required to develop plans to improve within specific time periods or lose 

approval of their programs. 

Dr. Noell’s expertise was used by the Louisiana Department of Education to create a new value-added model that is now being used as part of a State teacher evaluation system for all teachers in Louisiana. In 2011, a decision was made by higher 

education to adopt the value-added model being used for all teachers instead of 

using the original value-added model developed for teacher preparation. That is the 

value-added model that we are now using and reporting to the public. 

I have shared what we have done to demonstrate that you do have States where 

universities and private providers have been actively engaged in improving the effectiveness of new teachers. There are other States and institutions that have 

worked equally as hard. This has been complicated and very challenging work; however, data now exist in our State to show that our systemic reforms have had a positive impact upon needs that were originally identified in 1999–2000. This is true 

for all of our institutions, including our historically black colleges and universities. 

As examples, all public and private universities in Louisiana are now nationally accredited, and all but one university have 100 percent passage rates on State licensure assessments. Public opinion has improved and principals have indicated that 

new teachers completing redesigned programs are better prepared than previous 

teachers. Data now exist to show that children taught by new teachers who completed redesigned programs have demonstrated greater growth in learning in more 

content areas and at more universities than growth in learning that occurred in preredesign programs in 2005–6. Based upon the State’s new value-added model, more 

new teachers have obtained value-added scores in the ‘‘Effective Proficient’’ and 

‘‘Highly Effective’’ ranges than anticipated. 

At the present time, our data indicate that we do not have universities or private 

providers where entire teacher preparation programs need to be shut down. Instead, 

we now know that we have specific grade spans and specific content areas where 

growth of student learning is not as great as other content areas and grade spans 

at each institution. Our campuses are now working to create programs where all 

grade spans and all content areas are equally strong. 

Louisiana’s work is not yet done. Teacher preparation programs in Louisiana are 

now identifying new needs that are different than the needs that existed in 1999– 

2000 and embarking upon Teacher Preparation Reform 2.0. These needs include the 

development of greater collaboration between universities and school districts to create higher quality clinical experiences and residency programs, provision of in-depth 

instruction to prepare new teachers to address college-and career-ready standards, 

creation of a coherent system that blends multiple systems currently being used to 

evaluate teacher preparation programs, and communication of accurate information 

about teacher preparation programs to the public. You can learn more about Teacher Preparation Transformation 1.0 and 2.0 by going to a Web site we have developed 

that provides access to the resources we have created or used (http://regents.la.gov/ 

onestopshop). 

43 

Louisiana has already started to implement new initiatives to address Teacher 

Preparation Transformation 2.0. Through a Core to College grant from the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, universities are developing a deeper understanding of 

the Common Core State Standards and PARCC assessments and identifying 

changes that need to be made in teacher preparation programs to prepare new 

teachers who effectively address college- and career-ready standards. Louisiana is 

one of seven States that received a Network for Transforming Education Preparation (NTEP) grant from the Council for Chief State School Officers, and we are 

using the grant to identify future changes to State licensure for teachers, additional 

changes for the approval of teacher preparation programs, and relevant data to 

evaluate the effectiveness of teacher preparation programs. Once again, authentic 

stakeholder engagement is going to be critical for these reforms to continue to be 

sustained across multiple administrations. 

An important lesson we have learned is that there is not one single way to improve teacher preparation programs. When our Commission first met to develop its 

initial recommendations, it heard from experts who were engaged in successful reforms in other States. The Commission used the lessons learned in other States to 

identify what would work best in our own State. States need to have the flexibility 

to create teacher preparation reforms that will be supported by their stakeholders. 

They then need to be held accountable for successfully implementing reforms that 

have a positive impact upon the learning of children in their States. 

The Higher Education Act has had an important role in moving States in the direction of collecting data about their programs for accountability purposes and reporting the results to the public. A clearer understanding now exists in our State 

regarding the types of traditional and alternate teacher preparation programs being 

offered across the State, the number of teacher candidates enrolled in the programs, 

and the areas in which they are pursuing certification. The public now has direct 

access to accurate information about the passage rates of candidates within individual teacher preparation programs on State licensure assessments. However, 

many of the other indicators that institutions and States must now submit for title 

II annual reporting are excessive and lack meaning due to different interpretations 

across institutions within States and across States. The process is extremely time 

consuming for individual campuses and time consuming for State agencies responsible for overseeing the collection of the data. Some of the data reported by institutions are included in the annual reports, but it is not clear what occurs with other 

data, for it is not made available to the general public. 

The reauthorization of the Higher Education Act is an important opportunity for 

Congress to make important changes that can have a positive impact upon all teacher preparation programs across all States. 

Today I would like to share five recommendations. 

Recommendation 1: Expand investment in teacher quality innovation at 

campus and State levels. 

The Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) grants which were authorized in the 2008 

Higher Education and Opportunity Act have provided individual teacher preparation programs with the opportunity to implement innovative ideas to improve the 

quality of their programs. Federal funding needs to be increased to support this innovation. In addition, Federal funds need to be made available to higher education 

State agencies on a competitive basis for statewide innovation and reforms. This 

will help to stimulate and support systemic reforms across a larger number of teacher preparation programs in a State. By sharing Federal funds across institutions for 

the purpose of program improvement, competitiveness diminishes and collaboration 

increases as institutions share best practices to help improve all institutions in a 

State—not just their own. 

Recommendation 2: Clearly identify a purpose for title II reporting and 

align evidence with the purpose. 

A need exists to identify a clear purpose for the collection of data for title II reporting. A need also exists to identify aspects of teacher preparation programs that 

are considered to be important across States. Clear indicators and measures need 

to be identified that are aligned with the purpose and aspects of teacher preparation 

that are identified as being important. As an example, passage of teacher licensure 

assessments appear to be an aspect of teacher preparation programs that is considered to be important for the current title II annual reporting, and a process has 

been developed to collect licensure scores. If the purpose of the title II reporting is 

to compare States, this is not a good measure for different States have different cutoff scores for licensure. If the purpose of the title II reporting is to inform the public 

about different types of evidence across States, the measure would be appropriate 

44 

for the purpose and address the aspect of teacher preparation that is considered to 

be important. 

Recommendation 3: Collect a concise but meaningful set of indicators for 

title II reporting. 

Identify a common set of concise but meaningful indicators to report information 

to the public about traditional and alternate teacher preparation programs that are 

offered by public/private universities, private providers, and districts. Examples 

could include: passage rates on licensure assessments, impact of new teachers upon 

growth in student learning, performance of new teachers on State teacher evaluations, and national accreditation. Examples of indicators identified by the Council 

for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation that Louisiana is now developing a 

process to collect include the following: completer or graduation rates, percentage 

of completers that meet State licensing requirements, percentage of completers that 

obtain a license to teach, percentage of completers that are hired in schools, percentage of completers that are hired in positions for which they are prepared, retention 

of new teachers once hired, results of completer surveys, and results of employer 

surveys. As indicators are identified for title II reporting, work needs to occur with 

organizations that report data (e.g., Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, National Council on 

Teacher Quality, etc.) to establish common metrics that can be used across organizations and title II reporting. 

Recommendation 4: Allow States to create their own accountability systems. 

Set basic expectations, but allow individual States to create accountability systems that meet the needs of their States. As an example, instead of just requiring 

States to identify ‘‘At-Risk’’ and ‘‘Low-Performing ‘‘ teacher preparation programs, 

establish the reporting of performance at four or more levels. Set expectations that 

States will provide support to low performing programs and have States identify the 

types of support that will be provided. Have States clearly define all of the indicators that will be used to examine performance within their accountability system 

and how the indicators are aligned with the purpose of their system and the aspects 

of teacher preparation that they consider to be important in their individual States. 

Recommendation 5: Set clear expectation for active stakeholder engagement. 

As title II funds are disseminated to States, clearly communicate the expectation 

that active stakeholder engagement must occur. Changes in policies, laws, and procedures should not occur in States without key stakeholders from the State, higher 

education, PK–12 education, and communities being involved in discussions that are 

open to the public. Stakeholder engagement is especially critical at the community 

level as universities, private providers, and PK–12 schools deepen their partnerships to provide meaningful clinical experiences to teacher candidates that are supported by effective experienced teachers. As States move toward comprehensive implementation of college- and career-ready standards, active sharing of information, 

resources, and expertise between PK–12 and higher education is more critical than 

ever before. 

In conclusion, please know that Louisiana can be a resource to the committee as 

policies are developed to improve teacher preparation across our country. Thank you 

again for allowing me to speak before your committee today. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you all very much for very concise summaries of your written statements. We’ll start a series of 5-minute 

questions. 

I want to ask kind of a specific element here. More and more 

children with disabilities are now being taught in inclusive classrooms. That’s good. We know that this benefits both disabled and 

nondisabled students in their growth. But my question is: Are general education teachers getting enough training to confidently 

teach a mixed abilities group? And should all teachers receive some 

training in disability education? 

I’ll just go on a little bit more. We know that children with disabilities and children of color are at a disproportionate risk of being 

suspended, physically restrained, involuntarily confined, or arrested in school. These practices traumatize students. They limit 

45 

their access to classroom instruction and make it more difficult for 

them to succeed. 

Again, in teacher training and in teacher education, what’s being 

done to address this? This is a very serious problem in our schools 

today. And yet, as I read all your testimonies yesterday in preparation for today, I don’t see anything in there on that. There’s a lot 

of general stuff in there. I got that. But teacher accreditation—are 

we asking any of these questions? I don’t see it. Do you? 

Dr. Koerner. 

Ms. KOERNER. Yes. We have made several of our programs actually dual certificate. So early childhood is early childhood special 

ed. Elementary is elementary special ed. So those students are dually certified to be able to teach in an included classroom or even 

in a mildly disabled classroom. 

All of our students are in schools where they spend time in included classrooms, special pull-up programs. I really think a lot of 

it for us has to be in the clinical experience, because we are not 

only learning from the schools, but we are also contributing to 

making those schools better. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Daly, I know in your training program, 

you’ve fought educational inequality to a great degree. How have 

you addressed this? 

Mr. DALY. Special education is the single biggest subject area 

that we prepare teachers to teach. But I think that—— 

The CHAIRMAN. I’m not saying special ed. I’m saying general 

teachers in classrooms that have kids who are disabled in the 

classroom. 

Mr. DALY. The short answer is you are correct. So right now, it’s 

largely overlooked, and in many cases, teachers find themselves encountering these sorts of issues and not feeling prepared. They 

make mistakes. They often misinterpret IEPs. I would say right 

now, much of the burden falls to the schools who do their best, I 

think, to fill those gaps. But your premise, I agree with. 

The CHAIRMAN. Anybody else? 

Dr. Brabeck. 

Ms. BRABECK. Yes, I think it’s a very important question, and it 

is addressed in the standards and the indicators that CAEP has designed. It is under the general category of programs being held responsible for graduating candidates who are classroom ready to 

teach all children. In New York University, which is the urban 

school district, we prepare teachers in special—all of our general 

education teachers at the elementary level also are certified in special education. 

The real crux of the challenge in this is that special education 

is an area that could be taught in a number of ways. We are trying 

to get away from the diagnostic taxonomy orientation of labeling 

children using special education categories to an individualized instruction orientation where teachers learn how to modify instruction for each individual child. The CAEP elementary standards are 

currently being redesigned, and special education will be a very 

significant piece of that redesign. 

The CHAIRMAN. I want to call on Dr. Burns, but, again, in all of 

your recommendations for different things that we should do in our 

reporting, I don’t see this as one specific reporting. 

46 

Yes, Dr. Burns. 

Ms. BURNS. Within Louisiana, when we went through the redesign, all of our universities had to ensure that regular teachers 

were being prepared to work with exceptional students. Now, as I 

mentioned to you, we now have the capacity to provide growth in 

learning information back to our teacher preparation programs, 

and we can actually provide our campuses with information for 

their elementary education teachers about how well they have prepared their candidates for growth in learning to occur in children 

after those teachers become teachers. 

We can break it down by the content area, but we can also provide them information about how well they are doing in helping 

children who are exceptional children demonstrate growth in learning. In addition, they are given data about the brightest children 

that their new teachers are preparing. 

But this is very valuable information, because our campuses can 

then go back, and if they find that they’re doing well with teachers 

who are working with bright students, but not children who have 

special needs, then they can go in and make changes to their programs. 

The CHAIRMAN. Very good. Thank you all very much. My time is 

up. 

Senator Alexander. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you for your testimony. I’m going to express two biases 

and ask a question. The first is the bias that non-ideological inertia 

piles up rules and regulations here that become outdated, imprecise, and once the questions are answered and the information is 

sent here, there’s nobody here to do anything with the information. 

Each of you has said that in a more eloquent way than I just did. 

What I wanted to ask you to do—Mr. Daly suggested a great 

swap—one thing. Would you be good enough to write a letter after 

this and say if you were writing the reporting requirements for 

Title II of the Higher Education Act, exactly what would it say? 

What I’ve found out around here is that a specific written proposal actually has a pretty good chance of getting adopted. So I’d 

like to ask you to do that afterwards since I only have 5 minutes 

for questions, and I have a lot of questions. Would you be willing 

to do that? 

Mr. CROWE. Yes. 

Ms. BRABECK. Yes. 

Ms. KOERNER. Certainly. 

Mr. DALY. Yes. 

Senator ALEXANDER. And I know all of us would—I would give 

it to Senator Harkin and others who may be interested. 

Second, Dr. Brabeck, let me see if I have this right. A university, 

like the University of Tennessee, has a regional accreditation, and 

then its College of Education may get a specialized accreditation. 

And what you represent is the organization that’s a combination of 

two large specialized accreditors. Is that correct? 

Ms. BRABECK. Yes. The previous accreditors, TEAC and 

NCATE—— 

Senator ALEXANDER. That’s correct? 

Ms. BRABECK. That is correct. They will not exist. 

47 

Senator ALEXANDER. Good. That’s what I wanted to know. If 

that’s correct, how many teacher preparation programs do you now 

accredit? 

Ms. BRABECK. Currently, under TEAC or CAEP, which still are 

operating—or CAEP is operating under their standards until 

2016—there are about 900 programs. 

Senator ALEXANDER. About 900. How many other teacher preparation programs are there that don’t have special accreditation? 

Ms. BRABECK. I don’t know. Do you know how many—— 

Senator ALEXANDER. Any estimate of that? 

Mr. CROWE. About 1,200. 

Ms. KOERNER. I thought it was 1,400. 

Senator ALEXANDER. About 1,200. But if the University of Tennessee wanted to operate a College of Education under its general 

accreditation but not a specialized accreditation, it could, right? 

Ms. BRABECK. I don’t know what the law is in Tennessee. In New 

York, it would need to be accredited. 

Senator ALEXANDER. But according to Federal law, it could. 

Ms. BRABECK. According to Federal law. That’s correct. 

Senator ALEXANDER. But Tennessee could require that each of its 

teacher preparation programs have that kind of—of the 1,200 or so 

teacher preparation programs that are not accredited, should they 

have specialized accreditation, or is that too big to bite off right 

now while you’re improving your—or acknowledged to be very aggressive standards for the 900 or so that you’re already working 

with? 

Ms. BRABECK. Yes. I think they should be accredited, and I think 

they should be accredited for two reasons. The public is owed the 

accountability that comes with accreditation, the transparency of 

knowing about programs that work and programs that don’t work; 

and, second, because accreditation is the process of continuous improvement. When you gather the data and you have to look at it, 

sometimes it’s not pleasant to look at. It helps you change your 

program and make it better, and that’s the role that accreditation—the dual role that accreditation has. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Would you have different kinds of accreditation for different kinds of teacher preparation programs? 

Ms. BRABECK. I would have the CAEP standards for all teacher 

preparation programs. 

Senator ALEXANDER. That would be the 1,200 and the 900. 

Ms. BRABECK. That would be the 1,200 and the 900. I think 

that’s worked in medicine quite well and in nursing and other professions. My school has 15 different accreditations because we have 

the allied health fields. So they’re all accredited. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Now, if you did that, would you change the 

Federal law to make—Mr. Daly said that his students at some of 

the teacher preparation programs were limited because they 

weren’t eligible for Federal funding. Would you recommend we 

change the law to permit them to be eligible for Federal funding? 

Ms. BRABECK. I’m not really competent to comment on the funding issue. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Mr. Daly, what do you think about the idea 

of accrediting all teacher preparation programs? Is that too ambitious? 

48 

Mr. DALY. I think that the direction that they’re moving in, accreditation would be worth much more than it is now. I would say, 

right now, it would be hard for me to see what’s in it. We go 

through approval processes all the time, and the sorts of things— 

which would be, just to be clear, completely different than what 

CAEP is moving toward. 

But those processes have not been useful to us, and most of the 

time, the folks that we are asking for approval are typically the 

universities that are not so eager sometimes for us to show up. And 

we get asked mostly about things that are not related to the effectiveness of our teachers. So, as I said, they’ve generally been frustrating. If they got better, and if the accreditation process did provide the sorts of things that Dr. Brabeck is talking about, I think 

I’d have no problem with it. 

Senator ALEXANDER. My time is up. But, No. 1, I hope you each 

will write what you would—this is a relatively small amount of 

money by Washington standards, $40 million, and we ought to 

make sure that if we ask for something as a result of it, it ought 

to be precise and effective. 

And, second, I’d much prefer accreditors to be responsible for the 

excellence of these institutions, because the other choices are Federal bureaucracies or State bureaucracies, which aren’t as good. So 

if you default, then you turn it over to people who—us, who don’t 

know as much about it. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Alexander. 

I have in order here Senator Warren, Senator Isakson, Senator 

Bennet, and Senator Murphy. 

Senator Warren. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR WARREN

Senator WARREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, I was a 

new teacher many years ago, and so this is a topic that is near and 

dear to my heart, to special needs kids. So I want to start a round 

of questioning about funding and how we provide financial support 

for college students who are studying to be teachers. 

The Federal Government offers a program to fund teachers, the 

TEACH Grant program, and I’m concerned whether this program 

is actually helping support students who want to be teachers, or if 

it’s just loading other students with a lot of debt. The TEACH 

Grant program offers up to about $4,000 a year to undergraduates 

in teacher preparation programs up to a maximum of $16,000. 

The program is called a grant, but it comes with a catch. Recipients have to teach in high-need schools for at least 4 years in order 

not to have to pay it back. President Obama’s recent budget request notes that as many as 75 percent of those who receive this 

so-called grant actually end up paying it back as a loan. The Department of Education has suggested that part of the problem is 

that schools are offering TEACH Grants to undergraduates very 

early in their education, before they’re certain about their commitment to teaching. 

The President’s Budget also points out that even for those students who are more likely to become teachers, the TEACH Grant 

program could still put prospective teachers at a financial disVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:08 Nov 22, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00052 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\22606.TXT DENISE
49 

advantage when colleges supplant their own institutional grants 

with TEACH Grants. Institutions have a limited amount of aid to 

spend on their own, and so they have an incentive to hand out 

TEACH Grants as a part of their aid programs, even if this turns 

out to be loans rather than actual grants. So I just wanted to start 

with a question about how this works. 

Dr. Koerner, I know that your institution offers TEACH Grants, 

and I wanted to ask what steps your institution takes to ensure 

that TEACH Grants go only to those students who are likely to 

enter the teaching profession. 

Ms. KOERNER. Thank you for asking that. Actually, we are one 

of the largest recipients of TEACH Grants. We have 982 TEACH 

Grants. I think part of what gets lost in preparation of teachers is 

that a place like ASU actually produces teachers who stay in the 

State. They’re working class kids. This is their entre to middle 

class, and they really have a hard time paying for gas, clothes, and 

we do a lot of work with private philanthropists to raise money for 

those kids. 

The TEACH Grants are essential for us to recruit the kids that 

we want to bring in to teacher education. ASU, because Arizona 

does not have a State scholarship—we have about $200 million a 

year in aid that we have to give students, of course, that we get 

through tuition. So we’re very careful about how we identify students and how we counsel students. And because all of our students now have to spend time typically in high-need schools, we 

are preparing them for a career. We’re not just giving them money 

in order for them to get a degree. 

Senator WARREN. But let me just ask the question, whether 

you’re keeping data and how you’re counseling them. All I know 

are the national numbers, and that is three out of four students 

who are receiving these so-called grants are not receiving grants. 

They’re receiving a loan to fund college education to go somewhere 

else. 

I’m all for students having access to help to get through college 

and all for recruiting students into teaching. I’m just concerned 

about how it’s working out with this particular form of grant or socalled grant. 

Ms. KOERNER. I think that part of the people on this panel are 

saying you can’t—with Federal money, especially, we have to be responsible, obviously. We’re a public university—and with State 

money as well. So we advise students from day one when they 

come into our program. But, remember, most of our students are 

coming from community colleges. 

Senator WARREN. Right. Do you keep numbers? 

Ms. KOERNER. We do keep numbers, and I asked, actually, in anticipation of this, because we feel like in recruiting students, these 

TEACH Grants are so important. I asked yesterday if I could find 

out how many of our teachers who get TEACH Grants stay in 

teaching for 4 years, and I couldn’t get that data by today. 

Senator WARREN. Thank you. It seems to me that ought to be 

data that all schools ought to have as we go forward. 

Ms. KOERNER. I think that that is data that we should have for 

retention in any case, because if we’re real reformers, we’re trying 

50 

to reform schools where, actually, our kids stay in those schools for 

at least 4 years, and they don’t migrate out. 

Senator WARREN. Right. 

Ms. KOERNER. So for us, it’s a double whammy. I agree with you. 

Senator WARREN. I get it. I thank you, and I thank you for the 

work that you’re trying to do. I see that my time has escaped. 

That’s how I feel about it. 

But I do want to say two quick things. The first one is I agree 

with Senator Alexander. I very much hope that you will write us 

about what you think are the right data to collect and, I want to 

say, in particular, data that schools of education can use to help 

them improve teacher preparation, the focus in that direction, 

about what kind of data we should be collecting. 

Also, we’ll send questions for the record on teacher residencies. 

We’ve had some great successes with the Boston teacher residency 

program. I was going to ask you about it, Dr. Crowe, but I will do 

this in questions for the record. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Warren. 

Senator Isakson. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR ISAKSON

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thanks to all of you for what you do for kids and what you do 

for education in America. 

Mr. Daly, you have two recommendations in your report. One is 

the true measure of a program should be the performance of its 

graduates with real students in real schools. In your opinion, how 

much preparation really goes into preparing teachers for the real 

student of the real classroom in 2014? 

Mr. DALY. It’s tough for me to know what happens everywhere. 

I would say in our experience, we have evolved substantially over 

the last 15 years. We used to spend a great deal of time teaching 

theoretical concepts about child development and the history of 

education and all these things that we thought would give them a 

contextual framework for the classrooms that they were going into. 

We taught them about the concepts of classroom management or 

explaining things clearly. 

But what we were not doing nearly enough of was teaching them 

to practice the foundational techniques that they would use 100 

times a day. How do you get students in a line? How do you use 

economy of language to go through a concept so you don’t lose students? I would say if our experience is indicative of what’s going 

on out there, generally, then we all have had a long way to go to 

focus on preparing folks for the real job that they are doing. 

Senator ISAKSON. The reason I asked that question is when I 

chaired the State Board of Education in Georgia, we had a challenge in getting enough teachers, first of all. Second, we had a challenge in teachers quitting by the time they were going into their 

third year of public teaching. 

And my experience, more often than not, was that our colleges 

of education did an exemplary job of teaching the content and 

teaching the theory. But they did very little to teach the experience 

of the 21st century classroom, where three of the kids in the room 

51 

are going to have ADHD, six of the kids aren’t going to be able to 

speak English proficiently, and others have physical disabilities 

like the chairman was talking about. We don’t do enough in our 

colleges of education to really teach kids to teach in that classroom. 

Mr. DALY. You’re exactly right. 

Senator ISAKSON. Yes, ma’am? 

Ms. BURNS. One of the major changes that we saw that occurred 

within our State was when we started providing our campuses with 

the growth in learning data of children being taught by the new 

teachers who started teaching in the schools in their first and second year of teaching. That very much changed the type of discussions that started to occur on our campuses, because our universities were being held accountable for how well teachers were performing as it related to achievement of children in their classrooms 

after they left the universities. 

That really helped our universities turn and take a look at what 

standards students needed to be addressing when they went into 

the classrooms, what kinds of assessments children were being assessed on. They were looking at other types of areas that were very 

important for preparing new teachers as far as classroom management and other types of areas like that. 

But I can’t stress enough that when you’re holding teacher preparation programs accountable for the learning of children after 

their teachers have left the institution, that very much changes the 

types of discussions that occur on the campuses. 

Senator ISAKSON. And I think that’s why your recommendation, 

Mr. Daly, is so important, to really measure these programs based 

on the real performance of real students in real schools, which is 

really the key to it. 

The second thing I want to point out before my time runs out is 

that you made a second recommendation that Congress should embrace and support high-quality, non-university preparation providers, which is what you are. You’re a not-for-profit, non-university provider. I think across the board, education is going to have 

to look at alternative methods of certification for teaching and instruction if we’re ever going to have enough people to really deliver 

the quality content that we want delivered in America. 

We do Troops to Teachers programs now, with troops coming 

home and going straight into the classroom, teaching under the supervision of the Board of Education, things of that nature. So I 

really commend you for encouraging us to open our eyes and go to 

alternative certification as a way of looking at bringing the best 

person in for the real student in the real classroom, which in the 

end is what we’ve got to do. 

Mr. DALY. Thank you. 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Isakson. 

Senator Bennet. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR BENNET

Senator BENNET. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to 

the Ranking Member as well. 

52 

Thank you all for being here today. As everybody in this room 

knows, there’s a lot that goes into having a successful school. But 

if I could think about one of the takeaways from my superintendence in Denver, it is that if you have a school where people have 

universal agreement that they’re there to teach the kids, but also 

to perfect their craft as teachers, you have a fighting chance. If you 

don’t have that, you don’t. 

I was in a school the other day called Gust Elementary, Mr. 

Chairman, in Denver, a high-poverty school, with tremendous 

growth in the student achievement there. And I went to a classroom and randomly selected—so this is not a dog and pony show. 

I’m the one who picks the kids in their classrooms while they’re 

doing their lessons. I interrupt them and I ask kids how it’s going, 

because that’s a much more useful way of learning whether a 

teacher is being successful than watching a teacher. 

And I was in a conversation with this young boy, and I said, 

‘‘How do you like this school compared to your last one?’’ He said, 

‘‘It’s much better.’’ And I said, ‘‘Why is it better?’’ He said, ‘‘In this 

school, we learn from our mistakes.’’ And I said, ‘‘What about your 

last school?’’ He said, ‘‘Nobody ever even corrected my mistakes.’’ 

For that kid, he’s lost whatever year that was, which is sort of 

the sense of urgency I have about how we can make sure that we 

can change our architecture of how we prepare teachers in real 

time, not some time. The teacher in that classroom was a master 

teacher who had a mentee that she was teaching, and she said the 

best professional development she had ever had in her life was 

being a mentor to somebody else in the classroom. 

Then we went out and met a whole bunch of these teachers, because they’re part of something called the Denver Teacher Residency Program. These are mostly career switchers from advertising 

and other kinds of things. In that group was a 5-year teacher who 

had come in with the first cohort. Five years ago, she was a new 

teacher. This year, she’s a mentor teacher. 

And I think about what that acceleration looks like to changing 

the DNA of one American school district, and it’s happening at an 

astonishing rate. We’re going to have 41 campuses that are touched 

this year by this Denver Teacher Residency Program, which we’re 

doing with the University of Denver. 

Metro State University in Denver is creating a new approach to 

teaching education that’s completely residency based, and we are 

going to start with undergrads. We’ve been doing it with graduate 

students in DPS. 

Here’s my question to all of you. I took up half my time. I am 

too tired to deal with unwilling dance partners on this subject. 

What I want to know is what we can do with the Federal law to 

incentivize programs like the one that we’re rolling out in Denver— 

and I gather you’ve got a residency program at ASU—while others 

are figuring out that this is going to be the future. What can we 

do in terms of how we think about our budgets, both K–12 and 

higher ed acts, and what can we think about with respect to our 

regulations, simply to give permission to those out in the world 

who are prepared today to innovate and scale? 

Ms. KOERNER. One thing I do want to say in terms of the residency program is being in a school all by itself is not enough. Jesse 

53 

Solomon and I actually did the Boston Teacher Residency, and the 

idea was to actually have supervised instruction so that you can’t 

just—— 

Senator BENNET. I agree. I’d like to have an answer to the question that I asked. I totally agree with you. 

Ms. KOERNER. Oh, OK. 

Senator BENNET. The question is what can we do to accelerate? 

Ms. KOERNER. For us it was the TQP grant. 

Senator BENNET. I appreciate that, but that feels to me like a 

very small and modest thing. I completely support it. I’m all for it. 

But if you’re really imagining a world where you are recruiting— 

look, a lot of people wonder whether we even have a national issue 

with respect to education. To me, the fact that we’re going to have 

to replace almost 2 million teachers in the next decade is at least 

of national interest. It may not be done by us, but it’s of national 

interest. What can we do to move the levers? 

Tim, maybe you’ve got a thought on this. 

Mr. DALY. One thing I would say quickly is that I think there’s 

a temptation to focus on closing down the programs that are low 

performing. 

Senator BENNET. This is my point. 

Mr. DALY. Right. But I think you’ll never win that fight, because 

in so many places, there’s going to be a political battle that goes 

on forever. I think I would shift the focus from shutting them down 

to shifting the enrollment to the higher performing places, because 

most States have some program that’s both low performing and 

huge, and that’s a much—you’re never going to shut it down. 

Senator BENNET. Right. 

Mr. DALY. But I think that at the Federal level, make it less expensive, provide subsidies to the places that are believed to be 

high-performing, because people will respond to the economics of it, 

and I think you might win the money battle. 

Senator BENNET. In addition to expanding AmeriCorps, what else 

would you do there? 

Mr. DALY. That’s a good question. I think funding slots—if States 

can make a case that they have outcomes-based measures, and 

they could bring that to you and say, ‘‘Here’s a place that is producing high performers,’’ if you could fund more slots at those—so 

instead of funding the institutions, funding places for candidates 

that have gained admission there. 

Senator BENNET. I’m out of time, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead. 

Mr. CROWE. Two quick points. One is to continue ratcheting up 

the external pressure. It’s the only way this field will change. But 

do it in a smarter, targeted focus way. And, second, support competitive models of program development and delivery—again, external pressure to help improve the—— 

Senator BENNET. In my theory, the competitive models are more 

likely to close the lousy places than an accreditation model that 

never quite gets to the closure. 

Mr. CROWE. Why keep them open? 

Ms. BURNS. Can I just add one other thing? I really want to emphasize—provide States with the opportunity to be able to access 

the funds as well. We currently have multiple institutions in our 

54 

State that would like to move toward a residency model, and if the 

State could also have an opportunity to be innovative, then we 

could do some things that could have systemic changes occur across 

our State. And funds currently aren’t available for that type of 

statewide innovation. 

Senator BENNET. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Bennet. 

Senator Murphy. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR MURPHY

Senator MURPHY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you all for all of the hard work and innovative thought 

you’re putting into the subject. I wanted to sort of come back to the 

initial question Senator Harkin asked and Senator Isakson expounded on, and that is the reality of the new classroom. 

For a lot of the underperforming schools in my State, the 

foundational issue is kids’ behavior before you get to kids’ learning. 

We’ve done a lot of work over the past several years on the issue 

of creating positive school cultures, and it seems to me that a lot 

of that work has sort of run through school systems and administrators. 

Yet the reality is that the teachers are on the front lines of trying to create that positive school culture, trying to teach good behavior instead of just punishing bad behavior. And we have all 

sorts of programs that we help fund, like the Positive Behavioral 

Incentives and Supports Initiative that are working. 

The question I have is at the teacher training level, how much 

of this conversation is about how you try to reform the culture of 

a classroom so that when you have a lot of kids who show up not 

knowing how to behave get the supports they need rather than just 

the punishment that some teachers think they deserve. How much 

of that conversation is getting into the way in which we train 

teachers, and how much of it can you do in the classroom, and how 

much of it do you really have to wait until they’re out—how much 

can you do in the teachers’ classroom versus the kids’ classroom? 

Ms. BRABECK. I think it gets a lot of attention in teacher preparation programs. I think that the recent MET study that was done 

comparing—looking at five different observational measures of 

teachers performing in classrooms showed that the classroom management area was pretty good across the grades that were assessed, which were the elementary grades, four through eight. 

I think we’re doing a good job, because we know how to do classroom management. I think people need to know—they need the 

practice of doing it in difficult circumstances, but they also need to 

understand the psychological principles that undergird a good behavior management program. Together, then, when a program 

doesn’t work, if you know the theory base and you know the psychology behind it, you can change and moderate the program so 

that it works better. 

Ms. KOERNER. And one of the things we weren’t asked is leadership preparation. Our colleges also prepare principals. A good 

teacher cannot be a good teacher in a school that has a bad principal. It’s very difficult. You can do it, but it’s very difficult. 

55 

So even in response to Senator Bennet, what you were saying is 

that you have to create a school—a culture that’s positive, and a 

lot of it has to do with the principal. That’s why teachers leave. 

That’s why teachers will stay. That’s why kids with bad behavior 

may be accepted. We can’t divorce our teacher prep programs from 

our leadership preparation programs, either. 

Senator MURPHY. If you’ve got a teacher who knows how to do 

discipline and behavior management, but you’ve got a principal 

who’s going to suspend and expel every kid who goofs off or shows 

up late, the two don’t work together very well. 

Ms. KOERNER. Exactly, or the other way around. 

Mr. DALY. Senator, I think this is a really important point. What 

we learned over time is that we should train teachers to do these 

things the way that we teach sports or music, which is we ask people to practice the activity over and over again and get feedback 

so they can do it without thinking in the moment. If you’re a middle school teacher—and I was one—it is the job of middle school 

students to drive teachers crazy, and they can sense—— 

Ms. KOERNER. And parents. 

Mr. DALY [continuing]. Fear in a second. And the only way to do 

that effectively is to be able to do things like control your voice. We 

can all agree that having good voice control and not seeming accusatory is important. But knowing it and doing it are two different 

thing. 

And I’ll be honest with you. Not every one can control their voice 

and say, ‘‘Can you please sit up?’’ And not everyone can do things 

with a visual look instead of a shout. That’s where we find out that 

a lot of people are not meant for this. 

The mistake that we made for a long time, and I think that we 

all need to correct, is explaining it to folks and having a discussion 

about it is not the same as when you play a piano piece over and 

over again, or you do a drill in basketball over and over again so 

you can do it without thinking. And if you cannot address misbehavior without escalating the conflict, you cannot teach. 

Ms. BURNS. Something that hasn’t been mentioned here that is 

just as critically important as everything you’ve just heard is the 

clinical educators who are being the mentors for the new teachers, 

need to be teachers who are, himself or herself, demonstrating good 

management and has an excellent type of classroom environment 

in which those teachers are working during their student teaching 

or while they’re being mentored, whether they’re in an alternate 

certification program. Our aspiration is for every new teacher or 

aspiring teacher to have a mentor who is an excellent, effective 

teacher, but that doesn’t always occur, and more has to be done in 

that area. 

Senator MURPHY. Mr. Chairman, I’ll share one quick anecdote. In 

Bridgeport, CT, we had epidemic levels of school-based arrests, and 

they made a very brave decision in that school district. They decided to take the police officers who were patrolling the halls of the 

high schools and middle schools out and put them on the streets. 

Now, they were there if there was some dangerous episode, and 

they could come into the school. 

But what effectively happened is that because the police officers 

were there, the discipline had been out-source from classrooms to 

56 

the officers, and, thus, a lot of kids were being hauled away to jail. 

When the school decided to reinvest in having teachers be at the 

center of behavior management rather than police officers, in the 

first year, school-based arrests plummeted by 50 percent, and 

there’s no more violent episodes happening in school than there 

were the year before. It just underscores how good teachers who 

know how to manage behavior can save a generation of kids from 

that downward spiral that’s happening in that school to prison 

pipeline. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Quite frankly Senator Murphy, I don’t think 

there ought to be any policemen in our schools anywhere. I just 

think it sends the wrong signal. Anyway, we’ll discuss that later. 

That’s not part of this. 

Senator Alexander, we’ll have another round. Go ahead. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Don’t you want to go ahead? 

The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead. Go ahead. 

Senator ALEXANDER. I want to followup on Senator Warren’s 

comment and make sure I understood it. I think what she said was 

that as you’re suggesting to us what the reporting questions ought 

to be, that they be designed to produce data that’s most useful to 

the schools themselves and to the accrediting agencies. Is that 

what you said? 

Senator WARREN. I think that’s fair. The central part, at least 

part of what we have to look at—there are other reasons we collect 

data. We need to think about what the reasons are and what data 

we need, but, in particular, whether or not we collect the data that 

are going to be helpful in doing a better job of training our teachers. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Yes. The reason I respond to that—and we 

may or may not agree on this, but I think the entity that is most 

likely to do something with properly and efficiently collected data 

will be the programs themselves or the accreditors. I just don’t 

think, based upon my experience as a Governor and as a U.S. Secretary of Education and as a Member of Congress, that we’ll do 

that very well. That’s my bias. That might not be everyone’s bias, 

but that’s my bias. 

I also have a feeling that while $40 million, which is the amount 

we spend on title II, isn’t much in Washington terms, if we were 

to focus it or focus the questions we ask on a single thing or on 

two things, we might get a pretty big bang for our buck. That’s my 

usual experience. If you narrow something down to something you 

really want to know, you might really get something very useful 

out of it. 

I like the focus. I like Senator Warren’s suggestion that the data 

be, let’s say, especially useful to schools and to accreditors so they 

can do their job. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Warren. 

Senator WARREN. The only thing I would add, at the risk of turning this into a love-fest, is that—which I’m sure we’ll find a way 

to deal with—— 

[Laughter.] 

57 

Senator WARREN [continuing]. Is a second point around this, and 

that is, if we can just take the data point another step, I think that 

Senator Alexander makes a powerfully important point when he 

says data that get dumped in and nobody ever uses them are not 

only a waste of time for having collected them, but they really usually turn out to be lousy data, because you’re never getting the 

pushback to get those data right. 

And sometimes you have to refine—wait a minute, we asked it 

this way. It turns out it doesn’t produce very useful data. So part 

of that point is what are the data we need, but how do we also 

make sure that they’re fed into a system that uses them and then 

helps correct them and produce better data over time. This just 

comes from my own work with data. 

Dr. Crowe, you—— 

I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman. Is it all right if they say something? 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, that’s fine. 

Mr. CROWE. I was just going to respond to both of you. Senator, 

in addition to your inertia principle in terms of reporting, there’s 

also a kind of compliance principle. 

Senator WARREN. Yes. 

Mr. CROWE. Secretary Duncan said a year or so ago that the reporting system has about 440 different data elements, and so collecting this stuff and sending it to the State and then here has just 

turned into a job as opposed to using it for analysis. Now, my list, 

which I will provide to the committee, has 8 instead of 440 that are 

targeted on things programs can do for themselves and with others 

to get better and to tell the public how good or not so good they 

are and how they’re trying to improve. 

Senator ALEXANDER. We talk a lot about capacity in education. 

But part of this goes to the capacity of the Congress, the State 

agency, and the Federal agency to deal with data in an effective 

way. And we have a limited capacity to do that, which will be made 

a lot better if it’s focused in the way you suggest. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Bennet. 

Oh, I’m sorry. Go ahead, Dr. Brabeck. I was going to call on Senator Bennet. Dr. Brabeck, did you have something you wanted to 

say? 

Ms. BRABECK. I wanted to quickly add that as part of the accreditation process—which emphasis is on accountability, but also on 

continual improvement—is the requirement that programs demonstrate how they are using data and what kind of a system they 

have developed to feed the data back to the programs so that the 

programs have to look at how well they’re doing on behavior management or asking the right questions or any of the really critical 

areas that teachers need to master. 

Senator WARREN. That’s an important point. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Bennet, go ahead, just jump in. 

Senator BENNET. At the risk of making this all seem crazy, the 

thing I’m sitting here wondering is whether we’re creating an impossible task when we’re giving the wrong people the data. In other 

words, the idea that any teacher is prepared to be an effective 

teacher when she walks out of any school of higher education, I 

think, is crazy. This is a profession where—this is about lifelong 

58 

learning every single year if we’re doing what we’re supposed to be 

doing. 

The notion that somehow we’re going to design a system that’s 

going to hold. I’m all for outputs instead of inputs and all that kind 

of stuff—but that’s going to really make a meaningful difference. 

It would seem to me that where you want the information to end 

up is in the hands of school principals who are trying to make decisions about who to hire; in the hands of school districts who are 

trying to make the decisions about what universities they want to 

hire from; and in the hands, importantly, of future teachers who 

will be making a decision about whether this place or that place 

is going to prepare them well to do the work. 

That’s where the motive force comes from here, not from another 

commission, not from other reports. And I wonder whether I’ve got 

that totally wrong, or whether there’s ways in which we can, again, 

create a line incentive so that consumers of this stuff are actually 

able to make rational decisions that drive the system inexorably to 

improve rather than for it just to sit here in the same conversation. 

Ms. KOERNER. I think that it really rests, if you’re looking for 

measures, in partnerships. We don’t prepare teachers by ourselves. 

I think what keeps being brought up is this ivory tower and 

courses that don’t matter and all that, and those of us who think 

deeply about this and put it into practice don’t think that way. We 

are in partnership with school districts. 

Senator BENNET. Let’s rest there for a minute. That’s a very, 

very important point to me, because I’ve seen the same thing that 

you’ve seen. So we should be asking ourselves, both in terms of the 

ESEA reauthorization and the Higher Ed reauthorization—which, 

in my mind, shouldn’t be two separate things, but there’s nothing 

we can do about that. It is what it is—whether or not we are 

incentivizing those kinds of partnerships—— 

Ms. KOERNER. Right. Exactly. 

Senator BENNET [continuing]. Around the country, or whether 

what we’re doing is creating such silos, because of the accounting 

requirements around Federal funds, that instead of moving people 

together, we’re actually driving them apart, which actually happens to be the case in a whole bunch of areas. 

Ms. KOERNER. Yes. 

Ms. BURNS. I’d like to add here that right now, our public and 

our districts and our schools do not know what data to trust. There 

are a lot of different reports out there. One report says that a program is being effective. Another report says that they’re not being 

effective. 

As we are talking about identifying data here, we need to make 

sure that the data is being collected in a valid and reliable manner, 

and that there’s common interpretations as to what type of data 

should be submitted. Otherwise—and it needs to be used across different national organizations that are reporting to the public about 

the quality and effectiveness of teacher preparation programs. 

I can’t stress enough data, but it needs to be interpreted in a 

consistent manner when being reported, and it needs to be valid 

and it needs to be reliable so that the public can trust it. 

Senator BENNET. Can I come back, Dr. Koerner, to something 

you mentioned earlier, because I think it was such an incredibly 

59 

important point. And that is the role of the principal and our almost complete lack of focus on the principal. I’m very happy to 

hear you guys are focused on it. I wanted to hear a little bit more 

about that. 

When I left Denver, we had worked very hard with our principal 

core, and I think the one—I used to say our reforms were breathtaking in their lack of originality except for one thing, and I won’t 

bore you with how we did it, but it made a huge difference. Today, 

the districts move to a very different place, where they’re saying, 

‘‘You know what? We don’t want anybody to supervise more than 

seven people,’’ which means that there are layers of teachers that 

have things to do, master teachers and other kinds of things, real 

opportunities, new opportunities. 

I wonder if you could share with us a little bit of what you’re 

doing with that. 

Ms. KOERNER. Sure. First of all, in our teacher assessment of 

performance, we have mentor teachers. You’re right. There’s a 

whole lot of levels in between teacher—there have to be clearer options, and we have to incentivize teachers to take on more leadership. So we have mentor teachers who actually meet with—and 

that’s the success of the TAP program—meet with other teachers 

and our teachers in order to have them become better. 

I also think what we’re working with and doing in our districts 

is creating a pipeline of leadership. So it isn’t just a way to get a 

master’s degree in order to get on a different level, whether you 

really ever want to become a teacher or not, kind of in response— 

the same thing as the TEACH grant. It actually is about—when 

have you developed leadership, and when can I help you build the 

capacity to develop leadership so that you’re on a path to become 

a principal? We’re working with our district partners to figure out 

how to do that. 

The CHAIRMAN. I’m going to jump in here on one thing, talking 

about all these data points. I just asked my staff to check on this. 

ASU is known for its intensive collaboration with local K through 

12 districts and schools in your recruitment efforts and your preparation programs. 

I mentioned in my opening statement that one of the things that 

we’ve been hearing about is a lack of communication in many 

places between institutions of higher education and K through 12 

school districts that they serve and the problems that leads to. So 

I just asked my staff if one of the data points that they have to 

submit now is their collaboration with local K through 12 schools, 

and the answer is no. They don’t even ask that question. 

Ms. BRABECK. It is a part of the CAEP requirements. 

The CHAIRMAN. Pardon? 

Ms. BRABECK. It is part of the CAEP requirements. 

The CHAIRMAN. Oh, it is? 

Ms. BRABECK. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. It’s part of the CAEP, but not part of what we 

have in the Federal requirements. 

Ms. BRABECK. Correct. 

Ms. KOERNER. But in order to run a successful program, you’re 

absolutely right. Obviously, there has to be a way to communicate. 

So we have advisory councils, formal advisory councils with our 

60 

partnership schools and with our grant schools. And it has to go 

both ways. Partnerships aren’t just about us telling them what to 

do. It has to be what they’re telling us to do. 

We involve also research that—what we haven’t brought up is 

that from districts, we need to know what they need to know, and 

we’re supposed to be good at that, so we’d better be providing what 

they need to know in order to become better at what they’re doing 

as well. But just as an aside, we do have formal parts of our partnerships with advisory councils. 

The CHAIRMAN. I just wanted to clear that up. 

Do you have anything else, Senator Bennet, that you wanted to 

bring out? 

Senator BENNET. I just want to thank you for holding the hearing, Mr. Chairman. We don’t talk about this enough in the Senate, 

and your leadership gives us the opportunity to be able to talk 

about what really is, on a daily basis, one of the most important 

things that’s facing our country. 

People aren’t really aware of how far we have to travel for—how 

obsolete the model is that we have of training teachers and bringing them into the workforce. We haven’t changed it since we had 

a labor market that discriminated against women and said, ‘‘Here 

are your two choices. One is being a teacher and one is being a 

nurse.’’ 

A lot of the way we’ve designed accreditation, the way we’ve designed the budget, and all this other stuff imagines that that’s still 

the world that we’re living in. Thank goodness, it’s not the world 

that we’re living in. And the question for me is how we can give 

an assist to the places that have figured out that we can unshackle 

ourselves from that and do the kinds of things that ASU and others 

are doing that are leading the way. 

We would accelerate the benefits for our children if we do that, 

and if we don’t, we won’t, because we’ll be here a decade from now 

having this same conversation. 

The CHAIRMAN. What did you say? In the next 10 years, how 

many? 

Senator BENNET. It’s almost 2 million. I think 1.7 million teachers we have to replace. 

The CHAIRMAN. That’s K through 12 teachers. 

Senator BENNET. K through 12 teachers. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Mr. Chairman, maybe it’s a function of 

length of perspective, let’s call it, otherwise, age, but in the time 

I’ve been fooling around with the schools, I’ve seen some pretty big 

changes in this. We’ve gone from almost no alternative certification 

programs to 40 percent of new hires. Is that right, something like 

that, up to 40 percent? 

We’ve seen Teach for America go from nothing to something. 

We’ve seen teacher evaluation programs try to get started—lots of 

places, lots of school districts struggling with that, trying to figure 

out a way to do it. We’ve seen the States, almost every State, with 

new accountability standards that affect directly teaching. Most 

colleges of education over the last 30 years, most universities, the 

big ones, have dramatically changed the amount of content that 

teachers are required to learn before they get their teaching degree. 

61 

And I think potentially enormously important are the new standards—the merger of the specialized accrediting agencies and your 

new extremely aggressive standards. I imagine over the next few 

years, we’re going to see some pushback from that, from teacher 

preparation programs. 

So I don’t disagree with Senator Bennet that we’ve got a huge 

national challenge that we’re not prepared to deal with. But over 

30 years, anyway, maybe not over 10 or 15, I think the changes are 

significant. Maybe it’s a word I would use. 

The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything else that any of you wanted to 

add to this hearing at all? 

[No verbal response.] 

So please individually respond to Senator Alexander’s query on 

what you would change. 

Now, Mr. Daly, you don’t want to change anything. You want to 

scratch the whole thing and start—get rid of it and start from 

scratch. What would your outline be? 

This could be helpful to us to take a look at that and see what 

we can do with the limited funds we have. One of the questions I 

didn’t ask—I was going to ask if you had ideas about how to leverage—how do we leverage some of that money? 

There are a lot of small programs that the Federal Government 

has that have big impacts because we figured out how to leverage 

money by getting—we put in a dollar, and if they want the dollar, 

maybe somebody else has to add a couple of dollars or something 

like that in terms of programs, or they have to do certain things. 

So maybe we could leverage the money somewhat. I don’t have any 

specific ideas on that. I just know that we’ve done it in other areas. 

If you have any thoughts on leveraging, please submit that along 

with your outline of what would be the number of data points or 

things that we should—— 

Senator ALEXANDER. But that should all go to the chairman, and 

then he’ll see that we all get it. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Just send it to the committee. Send it to our 

committee, and then we can disperse it. If you would do that, I’d 

sure appreciate it. 

This was very informative, a good, thoughtful session. We appreciate it very much, all of you, and I thank you for—many of you 

have been involved in this for many, many years, and we thank 

you for your leadership and guidance on this. We’re going to try to 

put this higher education bill together sometime soon. 

Thank you all very much. The hearing will be adjourned. 

[Additional material follows.] 

62 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHRIS STEPHENSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

COMPUTER SCIENCE TEACHERS ASSOCIATION (CSTA) 

PREPARING TEACHERS FOR A CRITICAL DISCIPLINE

For decades, many groups and policymakers concerned about the state of the 

country’s education system have been trying to solve what they perceive as its problems. The White House and Federal agencies have been concerned that young people are not learning what they should in elementary, middle, and high schools to 

be successful in college and careers. Congress is concerned that Federal education 

laws and investments are not yielding improved achievement and may be doing 

more harm than good. Think tanks are opining on what interventions might improve high school graduation rates. Philanthropy is considering how to foster persistence among certain populations on college and university campuses nationwide. 

And yet, the one discipline that offers those who pursue it limitless opportunities 

is marginalized across the educational spectrum. Computer Science is ubiquitous. It 

impacts teachers and students and principals and lawmakers—and yet, it is difficult 

to find in the K–12 educational system. 

It has been said that we teach our young people what we value, but the importance of computing and Computer Science in our daily lives hasn’t translated to a 

respectable presence in classrooms. Nor is it represented in the confused, disparate 

and sometimes absurd teacher certification processes that those who want to teach 

Computer Science find themselves navigating. Computer Science teacher certification across the Nation is typified by confounding processes and illogical procedures—bugs in the system that keep it from functioning as intended. 

Because Computer Science and the technologies it enables lies at the heart of our 

economy and our daily lives, we have an educational and moral obligation to provide 

all students with the knowledge they need for a world where computing is ubiquitous. If we are going to prepare our students to thrive in this new global information society, we must provide all students with the opportunity to develop a fundamental understanding of the principles of Computer Science. 

The information technology and computing industry cannot find the talent it 

needs to fill lucrative positions across the country. In the year 2020, there will be 

9.2 million jobs in the ‘‘STEM fields’’—those that rely on science, technology, engineering and mathematics—and half of those jobs will be in computing and IT. 

That’s 4.6 million jobs waiting for those who choose to acquire Computer Science 

knowledge and skills. These companies want more young people to discover Computer Science and study it, and the country’s economic fortunes depend on it. To 

make that happen, it must be taught. To teach it, there must be a qualified, valued 

Computer Science teaching workforce. And these teachers need to be certified, just 

as their colleagues in science, English, history, math, and arts classrooms. 

Research on computer science teacher certification in the 50 States and the District of Columbia reveals that the certification/licensure processes for Computer 

Science are deeply flawed. Prospective Computer Science teachers often meet difficulty in determining what the certification/licensure requirements are in their own 

States because no one seems to know. Add to that frustration, the confusion that 

persists around what Computer Science is and isn’t and where it fits in K–12 academics, and it’s astounding that professionals with such valued expertise persevere 

to become Computer Science teachers. They do, but not in sufficient numbers. 

Federal, State and local K–12 education policy interactions create this untenable 

situation—intentionally or not. Since Computer Science isn’t a ‘‘core academic subject’’ in Federal education policy, States discount it and this perceived lack of importance has impact at the district and even school level. State education policies reflect Federal priorities. And Computer Science isn’t one of them. Because non-required courses are less likely to be offered in schools, administrators are less likely 

to hire teachers who are specifically prepared to teach them. Because schools and 

districts are less likely to hire these teachers, teacher education programs are less 

likely to provide programs to train them. States are also less likely to establish and 

maintain non-core subjects as a primary teachable discipline with rigorous preparation certification/licensure standards. In addition, of the 50 States and the District 

of Columbia, only 19 count Computer Science as a high school graduation requirement. As a result, students are less likely to take Computer Science courses. Taken 

together, these policy ramifications mean fewer opportunities for students to take 

the courses that will provide fundamental knowledge and skills and prepare them 

for future computing jobs. 

63 

A major research report by the Computer Science Teachers Association entitled 

Bugs in the System: Computer Science Teacher Certification in the U.S. (http:// 

csta.acm.org/ComputerScienceTeacherCertification/sub/CSTAlBugsInTheSystem 

.pdf) reveals that it is difficult to draw broad conclusions about the certification of 

Computer Science teachers in the country beyond the fact that it is not working. 

Each State has its own process, its own definition of Computer Science, and its own 

ideas about where it fits in a young person’s educational program (if at all). The 

report and what it reveals about these processes forms the basis for a number of 

policy recommendations: 

• Establish a system of certification/licensure that ensures that all Computer 

Science teachers have appropriate knowledge of and are prepared to teach the discipline content. 

• Establish a system of certification/licensure that accounts for teachers coming 

to the discipline from multiple pathways with appropriate requirements geared to 

those pathways. 

• Establish a system of certification/licensure that accounts for previous teaching 

experience (‘‘grandfathering’’) for teachers with at least 2-years of experience teaching Computer Science courses that are aligned to grade level CSTA K–12 Computer 

Science Standards. 

• Provide a certification pathway that includes both content and pedagogical 

knowledge for those transitioning into teaching from industry. 

• Require teacher preparation institutions and organizations (especially those 

purporting to support STEM education) to include programs to prepare Computer 

Science teachers. 

• Establish a computer science Praxis exam that assesses teacher knowledge of 

computer science concepts and pedagogy. 

• Provide comprehensive professional development for teachers to enable them to 

achieve or maintain a certification/license or endorsement in Computer Science. 

• Incentivize school level administrators to offer rigorous Computer Science 

courses offered by qualified Computer Science teachers. 

Computer Science is the primary driver for job growth throughout all STEM 

fields. More than 50 percent of projected jobs in STEM fields are in computing occupations; these occupations dominate ‘‘help wanted’’ advertisements and computer 

science is one of the most in-demand degrees for those leaving college. Computer 

Science also provides the knowledge and skills all students need to participate as 

equals in the new global information society. Despite this, our K–12 system continues to marginalize Computer Science education. Federal, State, and local policies 

governing teacher certification/licensure also result in barriers to, rather than support for, exemplary teaching and learning. It is imperative that these barriers be 

removed now so that students can be put on an educational path to high-demand, 

high-skill, high-pay computing jobs across all sectors of the economy. Our future depends upon it. 

Thank you for your attention to these views. CSTA and its members are happy 

to help the Congress as it works to ensure that teachers are prepared to teach Computer Science and the subjects important to the 21st Century workforce. 

APRIL 24, 2014. 

U.S. Senate, 

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, 

428 Senate Dirksen Office Building, 

Washington, DC 20510. 

DEAR CHAIRMAN HARKIN AND RANKING MEMBER ALEXANDER: Thank you for the 

opportunity to testify at the March 25 hearing on ‘‘Teacher Preparation: Ensuring 

a Quality Teacher in Every Classroom’’ and for your request for recommendations 

regarding the Title II HEA reporting requirements. 

A good starting point to improve the impact of title II on teacher preparation program quality and accountability is to reduce the current reporting burden on States 

and programs. Too many of the reporting elements are not central to understanding 

the preparation, production, and performance of strong teachers. And too little attention in the current reporting rules is given to information about key program 

outputs and outcomes that affect the learning performance of K12 students. 

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR INSTITUTIONAL REPORTING

Now is a promising time to accelerate progress on teacher preparation program 

reform and accountability. States, national organizations, and programs themselves 

64 

are working to improve the preparation of teachers for our Nation’s students, seeking ways to push weak programs to get better or get out of the business of teacher 

education, and finding stronger ways to measure program and teaching quality. 

Reporting requirements on teacher preparation should be organized around the 

eight pieces of information about program outcomes and program quality discussed 

below. All other title II reporting requirements should be eliminated. 

1. The academic strength of candidates admitted to programs 

Programs should report average GPA of admitted students as well as the percentage of admitted students below 3.0 GPA. Averages alone are not enough to understand whether all admitted candidates have the academic potential to become successful teachers. And since programs can calculate average GPAs for their candidates, they already have the data to report the proportion below a 3.0 GPA. On 

ACT and SAT, academic potential for candidates would be addressed by reporting 

averages for admitted students and the proportion above the national 50th percentile (on ACT, for instance, that means the proportion of ACT scores at 21 or 

above for admitted students). 

2. Demographic characteristics of admitted candidates and of program graduates 

Demographic data reported should be the ethnicity and gender of admitted students and of program completers. Both sets of information are useful to see whether 

programs are preparing new teachers who are representative demographically of the 

schools and districts they serve. 

3. Proportion of candidates obtaining at least 50 percent of student teaching experience in high-need and high-functioning schools 

Current reporting about clinical practice requests information about the number 

of clock hours in student teaching and the number of full-time equivalent faculty 

involved in supervising this student teaching. Neither tells us anything about preparation quality or whether student teaching is organized to help candidates become 

successful teachers in the kinds of the schools where they will be employed. 

Since newly employed teachers are more likely than veterans to be employed in 

low SES and relatively low performing schools, a relevant indicator is where they 

spent time learning how to teach. Teachers will not be able to succeed in challenging schools unless they spend time learning how to teach in similar environments. At the same time, recent research from the New York Pathways study group 

shows that these clinical site schools have to be functioning schools in the sense of 

being places where the academic trajectory is upward (even if not where it needs 

to be) and without constant staff turmoil and turnover. 

4. Number and percent of program graduates prepared in high-need subject areas 

States have the primary responsibility for approving teacher preparation programs and for licensing their graduates. Programs ought to have some responsibility 

for producing graduates in subject areas that schools in their State actually need. 

This indicator of responsiveness to State needs would collect information from each 

program on the number of graduates prepared in each of the State-designated 

high-need subject areas (STEM, SPED, ELL, etc.). 

Programs should also be asked to report what proportion of total graduates is in 

these high-need fields. Both pieces of information would give us a good window on 

program priorities and the extent to which those priorities are helping the students 

and schools of their State. 

5. Employment and persistence of program graduates in high-need subjects and 

schools 

This information builds on the prior one by collecting data from programs about 

employment outcomes, linking these outcomes to critical State needs. For both highneed subjects and high-need schools, programs should report this information based 

on how their own State designates high-need schools and subjects. 

Persistence rates of program graduates provides an important measure of how 

well a program prepares its graduates for a career in teaching. High rates of turnover persist despite the fact that many teacher preparation programs say they are 

preparing teachers for challenging schools in urban or rural settings. Preparation 

programs are not solely responsible for the problem or for its solution, but many 

programs don’t know if their graduates are teaching, much less how long they stay 

in the profession. They also aren’t sure whether graduates teach in the kinds of 

schools the program believes it is preparing them for. 

Is it fair or reasonable to associate turnover with teacher preparation programs? 

Studies show that preparation matters when it comes to teacher effectiveness. It 

is particularly important where candidates obtain their clinical experience before 

65 

graduation, and how the program’s clinical component is organized and supported 

by faculty so that graduates develop the skills and abilities needed in schools. Since 

teacher preparation programs already interact with schools, shouldn’t they contribute to turnover rate solutions? This can only happen through stronger incentives, including public reports through the State. 

6. Impact of program graduates on student learning outcomes 

This is the program outcome that matters most. Since high quality instruction is 

the main in-school driver for student achievement, it makes sense that measures of 

student learning ought to be part of preparation program reporting policies. Most 

States can already link student and teacher data in their K–12 system. The Council 

for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) has adopted this indicator as 

a measure of program quality for accreditation, but all programs should have to 

demonstrate how their graduates influence the academic achievement of the K12 

students in their classrooms. Waiting to move until every testing and reporting 

problem is resolved to universal satisfaction is not responsible or realistic, especially 

given the pressing and unmet challenge of helping every child to succeed academically through the provision of highly effective teachers. 

7. Classroom teaching performance by program graduates 

Because a single measure—no matter how powerful the findings—is not enough 

to gauge all the relevant components of teaching quality or program effectiveness, 

classroom observation and assessment of on-the-job teaching add significant value 

as an indicator of preparation program quality. At the very least, program graduates should have acquired knowledge and experience with core teaching practices 

by the time they complete a program. And with many States now developing and 

adopting teacher evaluation systems that include reliable and valid approaches to 

classroom observation, a good start would be having programs report results of 

these assessments for their graduates. Since more teachers will be assessed through 

observation than the number in tested subjects or grades, this indicator would 

greatly expand the proportion of program graduates for whom a strong measure of 

performance is part of the required report card. 

8. Survey findings from program graduates and their employers 

A growing number of teacher education programs seek regular feedback from 

their graduates about the program and how well it prepared them to teach. Some 

programs solicit similar feedback from the employers of their graduates. These survey findings let programs know in specific detail how well the graduates believe 

they were prepared for their classroom teaching responsibilities. And they allow employers to tell the program how they feel about the graduates who were hired in 

their school or district. Some States are already using these feedback surveys; they 

provide useful information as long as the survey has a standard set of relevant 

questions that speak to State-based teaching and learning issues. Programs should 

be asked to report feedback survey results as well as survey response rates. 

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR STATE REPORTING

Under the current State reporting requirements in the Title II HEA reporting and 

accountability system, few States make any effort to flag and report weak programs 

as low performing. The Title II HEA statute calls on States to ‘‘conduct an assessment to identify low-performing . . . teacher preparation programs in the State and 

to assist such programs through the provision of technical assistance. Each such 

State shall provide the Secretary with an annual list of low-performing teacher 

preparation programs and an identification of those programs at risk of being placed 

on such list . . .’’ 

The title II statute goes on to specify that ‘‘Levels of performance shall be determined solely by the State and may include criteria based on information collected 

pursuant to’’ the title II reporting requirements. For the most recent reporting year, 

39 States did not classify even one teacher preparation program as low performing 

or at risk of low performance. In fact, 35 States have never found a program to be 

low performing or at risk, despite the K–12 student performance issues that we 

know from NAEP and other sources. 

That 35 States have never found a program in need of improvement also suggests 

that these States are not doing enough to help programs and their graduates to be 

as effective as possible in meeting important State education needs. This can change 

by taking these steps: 

66 

1. State criteria used to designate programs as low performing/at risk (LP/AR) 

should be the same for every State 

Engineering, accountancy, nursing, and medicine are among the professions that 

have uniform State accountability standards for programs and graduates. In each 

case, the profession worked closely with States to develop a single set of policies 

that apply everywhere and were adopted by each State under its own authority. 

These fields—including nursing with over 1,200 program providers—also use the 

same licensing tests and passing scores for graduates in every State. 

There are good reasons for thinking that this voluntary approach by these professions and the States can make a difference for teacher preparation program quality. 

A significant number of newly licensed teachers in the United States complete a 

preparation program in one State and obtain their initial license in another jurisdiction. Nationwide, 19 percent of all initial State credentials are issued to teachers 

prepared in another State. For 10 States, over 40 percent of new teachers in each 

of these States are trained elsewhere and 22 States have reported that at least 20 

percent of new teachers were prepared outside their State. 

2. State criteria for low performing/at risk programs should include measures from 

the institutional reporting system 

The State criteria for low performing and at risk programs should include: (a) impact on student learning by program graduates; (b) results of high-quality classroom 

teaching assessments for program graduates; (c) persistence in teaching, especially 

in high-need subjects and schools; and (d) survey feedback from employers and program graduates. 

The importance and relevance of these measures has been discussed above in the 

section of this letter on institutional reporting. By using measures of program quality incorporated in the institutional reporting system, reporting burdens on programs and States would be greatly reduced and it would be possible for all States 

to use the same set of items. 

3. Licensure test passing rates as indicators of program performance 

The revised Title II HEA statute should close the door completely to current 

abuse of the ‘‘program completer’’ definition by programs and States so that artificially inflated passing rates are no longer used to mislead the public about program 

quality: 96 percent of all teacher candidates in the country passed all of their teacher licensing tests in the most recent year for which test results are available even 

though two-thirds of their students are not proficient in reading or mathematics. If 

this step is taken so that licensure test scores are reported for all students in a 

given program, pass rates below 80 percent should be used in the low performing/ 

at-risk State reporting criteria to flag a program as at-risk or low performing. 

4. States should share program report cards with school districts 

Nearly everyone who has talked to schools or districts about their sources of new 

teachers has heard anecdotes from district human resources (HR) officials or from 

school principals about the graduates of this or that program. Some report they are 

so happy with the quality of graduates from a particular place that they can’t get 

enough of them and would hire every graduate if they could. Others are less positive, telling the listener they would never hire a graduate from such-and-such program. Whatever we might read into these stories, they are not systematic feedback 

about program or individual teacher quality. 

States owe better information to district and school officials who hire new teachers. The State should help school superintendents and district hiring authorities to 

make the best decisions about new hires by sharing with every superintendent and 

district HR office the State report cards on every preparation program in the State. 

In conclusion, I appreciate your invitation to appear before the committee on 

March 25 and your request for my recommendations about the Title II HEA reporting requirements. These recommendations to the committee are based on the belief 

that we should no longer focus reporting on preparation program inputs or get 

bogged down in the nuances of complex program processes. Preparation program reporting in the United States should use indicators that students are learning from 

their teachers, that teachers are effective in the classroom as determined by objective measures, and that program graduates stay in the profession and teach in 

schools that need them badly. 

Sincerely, 

EDWARD CROWE, 

Senior Advisor, Woodrow Wilson 

National Fellowship Foundation. 

67 

RESPONSE BY EDWARD CROWE TO QUESTIONS OF SENATOR MURRAY, SENATOR

BENNET AND SENATOR WARREN

SENATOR MURRAY

The 21st century job market requires a skilled and educated workforce, investments in STEM education are essential to prepare our students for success in higher education and a diverse global economy. As you know our Nation faces significant 

challenges in the STEM area. 

Question 1. What sorts of promising initiatives are underway with early education 

and elementary teacher preparation to equip those new teachers to inspire and engage students at a young age in the STEM areas? 

Answer 1. STEM knowledge and teaching skills are particularly weak for many 

teachers of young children. This results from program recruitment practices where 

many teacher preparation programs simply have weak standards for admitting candidates to teaching; State requirements for preparation programs abet these weak 

standards by, for instance, setting the minimum grade point average (GPA) at 2.5 

for admitted candidates. A recent student of college and university transcripts found 

that 73 percent of all grades given by public colleges and universities in the United 

States were As and Bs (university-wide, not colleges of education), which translates 

to an effective average GPA of 3.2. Thus, holding teacher candidates to a low ‘‘standard’’ like 2.5 ensures that many of them do not have the academic potential to learn 

and teach STEM subjects to high levels. This problem is compounded by the low 

number (and rigor) of math and science courses that early childhood and elementary 

education candidates are expected to complete after being admitted. 

Numerous studies find that, as a result of the relatively poor quality of U.S. 

teacher candidates and the weak program requirements in content subject areas, 

many teachers are unable to understand and present sophisticated math and 

science topics (e.g., ‘‘doing’’ science as opposed to talking about it) to their young 

K12 pupils. For the early childhood years, too few teachers are able to provide appropriate levels of emotional and instructional support for their students, as described in Robert Pianta’s 2007 essay entitled ‘‘Preschool is School, Sometimes’’ 

(Education Next, winter 2007, volume 7, no. 1). 

Partly as a consequence, teachers turn to delivering STEM instruction through 

textbooks and reading-based instruction instead of hands-on learning. And when we 

consider that two-thirds of all fourth graders in the United States as well as 64 percent of 8th graders, and 63 percent of 12th graders are not proficient in reading 

according to NAEP, our teacher preparation programs and policies create huge barriers to STEM learning by younger students. 

SENATOR BENNET

Question 1. What indicators and metrics should the Federal Government be asking teacher preparation programs and States to report? 

The Federal Government should limit reporting by teacher preparation programs 

and States to a small set of key indicators that shed light on program quality. As 

I describe in greater detail in my letter to the committee dated April 24, 2014, these 

indicators are: 

a. The academic strength of candidates admitted to teacher preparation programs, 

and in particular their grade point averages (GPA) and ACT or SAT scores. 

b. Demographic characteristics of admitted students as well as the demographic 

characteristics of program graduates, specifically ethnicity and gender. 

c. The percentage of program teacher candidates who obtain at least 50 percent 

of their student teaching experience in high-need and high functioning schools. 

d. Programs should report the number and percentage of graduates who are prepared in high-need subject areas, with high-need subjects defined by the State 

where the program is located and approved. 

e. Employment rates of program graduates in high-need subjects and schools as 

well as persistence rates in teaching for program graduates in high-need subjects 

and schools; definitions of high-need subject areas and schools should be those of 

the State where the program is located and approved to offer teacher preparation 

programs. 

f. Impact of program graduates on student achievement of the K12 pupils taught 

by the graduates. 

g. Reliable and valid measures of the classroom teaching performance of program 

graduates, through a variety of measures that can include the teacher evaluation 

results from districts that employ the graduates and/or findings from nationally 

validated classroom observation instruments. 

68 

Question 2. 2. What should the Federal Government do to help improve the quality of programs? If the Federal Government can only accomplish one thing on teacher preparation in the Higher Education Act re-authorization, what would that be? 

Answer 2. If the Federal Government can only accomplish one thing related to 

teacher preparation through reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the goal 

should be to raise significantly the accountability pressure on all teacher education 

programs to the point where they must improve or be closed down by the States. 

Many hundreds of programs are far weaker than they should be; our K12 students 

are in a sense victims of these weak programs and their inability or unwillingness 

to change. And since most States have demonstrated a similar inability or lack of 

will to force significant improvement on their preparation programs, or to close 

them down, Federal action should step up the requirements on States to have meaningful and rigorous standards for program performance. My letter to the committee 

of April 24, 2014, describes the steps that can be taken. 

Question 3. What does an intense clinical experience look like for principals-intraining and what programs are doing this well? 

Answer 3. Few current principal preparation programs are organized around the 

concept that all successful principals are instructional leaders. Too much attention 

is given to the administrative burden of school leadership (which is not to say that 

these jobs do not have legitimate administrative functions), with almost no attention 

devoted to modeling, coaching and supporting principals-in-training to acquire and 

use the skills of building-level instructional leaders. One existing program that 

seeks to do this is the Rice University Education Entrepreneurship Program (REEP) 

that began several years ago. A comprehensive evaluation of this program has not 

yet been completed but the program design does address key aspects of principal 

leadership development largely overlooked by traditional programs. More recently, 

the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation has begun working with the 

University of Indianapolis and the Milwaukee School of Engineering to implement 

educator leadership programs aimed at addressing school improvement goals 

through intensive clinical experiences and mentorships. 

SENATOR WARREN

The thing that makes teacher preparation so important is the very same thing 

that makes it so challenging: it is a high-stakes endeavor. When teachers enter the 

classroom, they need to be fully prepared, because students rely on them—and students don’t have a year or two to wait while their teachers get up to speed. 

Teacher residency programs that emphasize clinical experience as well as classroom learning are one promising way to help new teachers get experience before 

taking on sole responsibility for a classroom. The Boston Teacher Residency is a program that gives aspiring teachers an opportunity to engage in a year-long classroom 

apprenticeship combined with college coursework. Early analyses, including one of 

the Boston Teacher Residency, suggest that teacher-residents have better retention 

rates and greater effectiveness in the classroom than their peers in the long term. 

Question 1. Please discuss the obstacles to creating more teacher residencies or 

other programs that place a greater emphasis on clinical preparation and what can 

the Federal Government do to help schools of education overcome these barriers. 

Answer 1. Teacher residency programs do hold great promise as a strategy for 

preparing effective teachers for our classrooms. As with nearly all forms of learning, 

repeated practice and guidance from experienced mentors is key to acquiring mastery of teaching skills. The best designed residency programs offer extended student 

teaching experiences—up to a year; follow a carefully designed curriculum that emphasizes skills and practice over theory; pay careful attention to selection, training, 

and support of classroom mentors; use frequent observation and feedback to guide 

teacher candidate development; and often make innovative use of video to give candidates many opportunities to watch other teachers (and themselves) cope with real 

world classroom situation. The Boston Teacher Residency program has many of 

these features as do the RELAY program in New York City and the Match teacher 

residency program in Massachusetts. 

All of these components of teacher residencies contribute to their success (although rigorous evaluations are underway for some residency programs, to this 

point they have not reported results), but each also poses a barrier to full implementation of the model. Federal support for residencies can help to overcome the barriers by funding multi-site residency ‘‘trials’’ that are coupled to a single rigorous 

evaluation design to determine what works and why. A weakness of the current 

Teacher Quality Grants program is its scattershot approach to funding very different approaches to preparation program improvement as well as the lack of a single set of outcome metrics and a single evaluation strategy for all grantees. We 

69 

would make headway understanding how to make residencies work—and how to 

dismantle barriers to their effectiveness—by supporting a focused approach to the 

residency concept. 

RESPONSE BY MARI KOERNER, PH.D. TO QUESTIONS OF SENATOR HARKIN, 

SENATOR BENNET AND SENATOR WARREN

SENATOR HARKIN

Question. What indicators and metrics should the Federal Government be asking 

teacher preparation programs and States to report? 

Answer. With the high number of teacher preparation programs across the country, title II offers the potential to serve as an impetus for and, even, guide to improving program quality and accountability. One consistent recording mechanism 

would relieve the current barrage of reporting required by States and programs 

while at the same time offer comparative measuring of important variables effecting 

preparation and performance of classroom teachers. By focusing on data points 

which provide accurate information about well-prepared new teachers to policymakers and citizens, the title II report would serve as the analytical tool which offers the information for reform needed in teacher preparation programs today. 

Impacting the quality of teacher preparation programs can be better monitored 

through title II reporting by including the following metrics: 

• The number and percent of graduates who are employed as teachers in highneed schools and subject areas, and the number and percent of these teachers who 

persist in teaching for 1–5 years after program completion. This should include: 

• The number and percent of graduates prepared as teachers in high-need subject areas as defined by the State where the program is located. 

• Percentage of students employed by the same school districts of student 

teaching placement. 

• Demographic characteristics of those who are admitted to the program, and 

similar data for those who complete the program to gauge the extent to which program enrollments and graduates reflect the diversity of the schools they serve. 

• The proportion of teacher candidates in the program who obtain at least 50 percent of supervised student teaching experience in schools that are high need. 

• A teacher effectiveness measure that captures the extent to which program 

graduates help their preK–12 students to learn. This would also include exit performance results of students as a graduation requirement from teacher preparation 

programs. 

• Classroom teaching performance for program graduates that is measured by reliable and valid assessments of teaching skills, student engagement and student 

learning. 

• Survey results from preparation program graduates and from their employers 

about how well the program prepares its graduates to teach; the report should include survey response rates. 

• The ratio of full-time teacher preparation instructors to students. 

As Dr. Edward Crowe eloquently stated in his testimony before the U.S. Senate 

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (March 25, 2014), 

‘‘Now is a promising time to accelerate progress on teacher preparation program reform and accountability. States, national organizations, and programs 

themselves are working to improve the preparation of teachers for our Nation’s 

students, seeking ways to push weak programs to get better or get out of the 

business of teacher education, and finding stronger ways to measure program 

and teaching quality. Reports on K–12 learning outcomes show that we must 

do much more to ensure a quality teacher in every classroom. Title II of the 

HEA can be an effective vehicle for this goal.’’ 

SENATOR BENNET

Question 1. What indicators and metrics should the Federal Government be asking teacher preparation programs and States to report? 

Answer 1. With the high number of teacher preparation programs across the 

country, title II offers the potential to serve as an impetus for and, even, guide to 

improving program quality and accountability. One consistent recording mechanism 

would relieve the current barrage of reporting required by States and programs 

while at the same time offer comparative measuring of important variables effecting 

preparation and performance of classroom teachers. By focusing on data points 

which provide accurate information about well-prepared new teachers to policyVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:08 Nov 22, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\22606.TXT DENISE
70 

makers and citizens, the title II report would serve as the analytical tool which offers the information for reform needed in teacher preparation programs today. 

Impacting the quality of teacher preparation programs can be better monitored 

through title II reporting by including the following metrics: 

• The number and percent of graduates who are employed as teachers in highneed schools and subject areas, and the number and percent of these teachers who 

persist in teaching for 1–5 years after program completion. This should include: 

• The number and percent of graduates prepared as teachers in high-need subject areas as defined by the State where the program is located. 

• Percentage of students employed by the same school districts of student 

teaching placement. 

• Demographic characteristics of those who are admitted to the program, and 

similar data for those who complete the program to gauge the extent to which program enrollments and graduates reflect the diversity of the schools they serve. 

• The proportion of teacher candidates in the program who obtain at least 50 percent of supervised student teaching experience in schools that are high need. 

• A teacher effectiveness measure that captures the extent to which program 

graduates help their preK–12 students to learn. This would also include exit performance results of students as a graduation requirement from teacher preparation 

programs. 

• Classroom teaching performance for program graduates that is measured by reliable and valid assessments of teaching skills, student engagement and student 

learning. 

• Survey results from preparation program graduates and from their employers 

about how well the program prepares its graduates to teach; the report should include survey response rates. 

• The ratio of full-time teacher preparation instructors to students. 

As Dr. Edward Crowe eloquently stated in his testimony before the U.S. Senate 

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (March 25, 2014), 

‘‘Now is a promising time to accelerate progress on teacher preparation program reform and accountability. States, national organizations, and programs 

themselves are working to improve the preparation of teachers for our Nation’s 

students, seeking ways to push weak programs to get better or get out of the 

business of teacher education, and finding stronger ways to measure program 

and teaching quality. Reports on K–12 learning outcomes show that we must 

do much more to ensure a quality teacher in every classroom. Title II of the 

HEA can be an effective vehicle for this goal.’’ 

Question 2. What should the Federal Government do to help improve the quality 

of programs? If the Federal Government can only accomplish one thing on teacher 

preparation in the Higher Education Act re-authorization, what would that be? 

Answer 2. Apart from not looking carefully at the performance of teacher education programs whose graduates are allowed to obtain licenses and teach in the 

State, and in light of the data presented above on student learning outcomes, the 

fact that 35 States have never found a program in need of improvement also suggests that they are not doing enough to help programs and their graduates to be 

as effective as possible in meeting important State education needs. There currently 

exists no incentive to improve or collect reliable and relevant data which shows improvement of programs or quality of graduates. 

If programs that prepare our Nation’s teachers are not held accountable in meaningful ways for the inability of their graduates to teach preK–12 students to teach 

mathematics and reading, it is hard to see how the country can help these students 

to become productive and successful members of our society. Self-regulation does not 

seem to be working. Nor does individual State accreditation or even national accreditation when everyone makes the bar. 

Provide funding to State education agencies, local school districts, and universities 

to create integrated data systems for tracking graduates of teacher preparation programs. The criteria for funding should include long-term data agreements (i.e., a 

minimum of 5 years), access to student achievement data of the graduates being followed, and agreement on a common system for evaluating teacher performance. The 

funding should be non-competitive given all required criteria are met. And then, act 

on it. Show exemplars and discredit inferior programs. 

Question 3. What does an intense clinical experience look like for principals-intraining and what programs are doing this well? 

71 

Answer 3. The research literature on principal preparation identifies four components that pertain to clinical training experiences and that are foundational for 

strong principal preparation programs: 

• Direct alignment with leadership standards that define the skills, knowledge 

and dispositions of successful school leaders (the Educational Leadership Policy 

Standards: ISLLC 2008 are identified in a number of research articles as an exemplar of this type of leadership standards); 

• Coursework that is highly relevant and that requires aspiring principals to 

apply theory to practice through the analysis of problem-based learning cases and 

applied tasks that are linked directly to authentic school-level leadership challenges; 

• The grouping of aspiring principals in ‘‘cohorts’’ in order to foster the development of teamwork, collegiality and collaborative learning; and 

• Robust, year-long principal internships (residencies). Two research reports provide the following summaries of characteristics of intensive high-quality internships 

identified in the research literature: 

• The Principal Internship: How Can We Get It Right? The Southern Regional Education Board, available at http://www.wallacefoundation.org/ 

knowledge-center/school-leadership/principal-training/Pages/Principal-Internship-Get-it-Right.aspx) 

• Collaboration between the university and school districts that anchors internship activities in the real-world problems principals face, provides for 

appropriate structure and support of learning experiences, and ensures 

quality guidance and supervision. 

• An explicit set of school-based assignments designed to provide opportunities for the application of knowledge, skills and ways of thinking that are 

required to effectively perform the core responsibilities of a school leader, 

as identified in State standards and research. 

• A developmental continuum of practice that progresses from observing to 

participating in and then leading school-based activities related to the 

core responsibilities of school leaders, with analysis, synthesis and evaluation of real-life problems at each level. 

• Field placements that provide opportunities to work with diverse students, teachers, parents and communities. 

• Handbooks or other guiding materials that clearly define the expectations, processes and schedule of the internship to participants, faculty supervisors, directing principals and district personnel. 

• Ongoing supervision by program faculty who have the expertise and time 

to provide frequent feedback that lets interns know how they need to improve. 

• Directing principals (coaches) who model the desired leadership behaviors 

and who know how to guide interns through required activities that bring 

their performance to established standards. 

• Rigorous evaluations of interns’ performance of core school leader responsibilities, based on clearly defined performance standards and exit criteria and consistent procedures. 

• Preparing school leaders for a changing world: Lessons from Exemplary leadership development programs (Stanford University, available at 

http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/school-leadership/keyresearch/Pages/Preparing-School-Leaders.aspx). 

• Research-based content that is aligned with professional standards and 

focused on instruction, organizational development, and change management; 

• Curricular coherence that links goals, learning activities, and assessments around a set of shared values, beliefs, and knowledge about effective organizational practice; 

• Field-based internships that enable candidates to apply leadership knowledge and skills under the guidance of an expert practitioner; 

• Problem-based learning strategies, such as case methods, action research, 

and projects, that link theory and practice and support reflection; 

• Cohort structures that enable collaboration, teamwork, and mutual support; 

• Mentoring or coaching that supports modeling, questioning, observations 

of practice, and feedback; 

• Collaboration between universities and school districts to create coherence between training and practice as well as pipelines for recruitment, 

preparation, hiring, and induction. 

72 

Programs that are doing this well include the iLeadAZ pathway in the Mary Lou 

Fulton Teachers College’s Masters in Educational Leadership program; the University of San Diego’s Educational Leadership Development Academy; the University 

of Connecticut’s Administrator Preparation Program; and the Principals Institute at 

Bank Street College. 

The document cited above (Preparing school leaders for a changing world) describes the USD, University of Connecticut, and Bank Street College programs, 

among others. A brief summary of ASU’s iLeadAZ program follows: 

iLeadAZ is a 15-month principal development program in which Arizona school 

districts partner with the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College in developing principal 

pipelines within their districts. There are four distinct phases of this intense clinical 

experience: 

• A 5-week summer intensive that engages participants in an authentic problembased, action-learning curriculum that simulates the actual challenges of an Arizona 

principalship. The simulations are a critical component of the learning experience 

and provide practical and realistic scenarios for the application of theory, research 

and best practices. 

• A 10-month, school-based residency under the mentorship of an experienced 

principal and the support of a leadership coach. Participants are immersed in a fulltime full-year residency experience in their school district. By employing embedded 

learning opportunities and cohort-style teamwork, this experience enables participants to build a community of practice for continual individual and team growth for 

school improvement and the requisite skills to lead educational innovation, and develop a discipline of inquiry-driven leadership anchored in student learning. 

Residencies expose iLeadAZ candidates to all aspects of leading a school—from organizing instructional improvement efforts, to managing school operational issues, to 

navigating organizational politics. In the second semester, residents take over the 

reins of the building with the principal taking a few steps back to allow them to 

fully experience the principalship. 

• Nine weekend conferences throughout the school year that extend the summer 

intensive experience. Friday’s are spent at local schools and Saturdays at the ASU 

campus. These sessions are designed to build on the summer learning, reinforce core 

outcomes, and continue to seamlessly bridge theory, research, and the iLeadAZ candidates’ experience in their residency. 

• Completion of coursework to earn a Masters in Educational Leadership. All 

coursework is directly aligned with the Educational Leadership Policy Standards: 

ISLLC 2008. Throughout the year, participants meet weekly via on-line video conferencing with the professors of the courses for which they are enrolled. Since participants reside in all areas of this geographically diverse State this allows team and 

individual learning in the critically important course work to expand and deepen 

their practice. 

iLeadAZ is designed to prepare principals who are ready to transform Arizona’s 

schools to rigorous learning environments that provide equitable educational opportunities for all students. All participants must meet rigorous selection criteria and 

performance standards to progress to each successive program phase and to graduate. The program is led by Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College faculty, along with 

former Arizona principals and principal supervisors. 

Question 4. Why did Arizona State University begin its new undergraduate residency? How did this change the university’s approach to ‘‘student teaching?’’ What 

can other schools of education learn about clinical experiences from your efforts and 

from residency programs like the Denver Teaching Residency? 

Answer 4. The Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College reformed its teacher preparation program because, although we were preparing very good and effective teachers, 

we knew through feedback from students, schools and because of our successful Professional Development Schools funded by TQP grants, that all of our students had 

to be immersed in partnership schools. We knew that they had to spend many more 

hours in schools with excellent supervision and our partner schools districts had to 

be a key component of the experience. Simple as it may sound, we knew we had 

to figure out how to prepare the best teachers we could for all schools. 

We also knew that we have a responsibility to our students to provide a most rigorous program which would prepare them to teach in any setting and be successful. 

We call our reformed teacher education program, ‘‘iTeachAZ.’’ The signature component of iTeachAZ is the Senior Year Residency (SYR). During the SYR, teacher candidates co-teach in a preK–12 classroom under the direction of a highly effective 

mentor teacher and a full-time ASU clinical faculty member. That means there are 

three teachers in the classroom who are all learning from each other. Courses emVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:08 Nov 22, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\22606.TXT DENISE
73 

phasizing teaching methods are taught in district locations to emphasize integration 

of theory and practice. The role of the iTeachAZ Mentor Teacher is to serve as a 

coach who models and plans effective best teaching practices, creates a supportive 

classroom environment where teacher candidates are encouraged to take risks, and 

observes and provides specific feedback to teacher candidates to ensure their preparedness to enter the teaching profession as highly effective, reflective teachers 

that impact and inspire all students. 

The Senior Year Residency model is a significant departure from ASU’s former 

model of student teaching. In the past preservice teachers spent one semester in a 

classroom and were supervised by part-time faculty. The mentor teacher often left 

the student teacher alone in the classroom to ‘‘sink or swim’’ rather than serving 

as a coach who modeled effective instructional strategies. The part-time faculty 

member had little knowledge of the student teacher or the preparation program. 

This model led to ineffective coaching from both in-service teachers and university 

faculty. 

Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College can help other schools of education with the 

design of intensive clinical experiences in partnership with local school districts. We 

have planned and implemented a replicable model and scaled it to 4,000 undergraduates. We can provide leadership on developing deep partnerships with districts 

and schools, reformed general education courses and necessary relationships with 

community colleges, training mentor teachers, performance assessments for student 

teachers and the academic core of the residency which is in our syllabi. Our materials are available online in our Professional Learning Library. 

SENATOR WARREN

Question 1. Please provide whatever data is available, including the proportion of 

TEACH Grant recipients who end up repaying their ‘‘grants’’ as a loan, and any 

steps your college takes to ensure that TEACH Grants go only to those students 

who are likely to enter into teaching upon graduation. 

Answer 1. Researching the information we have internally in our university’s student records and comparing it with information obtained from FedLoan Servicing 

(PHEAA), we have come to the conclusion that the percentages being provided to 

the committee most likely are overstated. We believe the 75 percent rate duplicates 

students by including the same students across multiple grant years and possibly 

multiple loans when students eventually convert. This illustration example is an example. This information was provided to us by the servicer detailing the number 

of grants converted with the footnote that students may have more than one loan 

depending on circumstance: 

ASU TEACH Grant to Loan Conversions Historical Perspective* 

Recipients Grants Loans 

2009–10 ................................................................................................................................. 1,183 465 727 

2010–11 ................................................................................................................................. 1,287 597 690 

2011–12 ................................................................................................................................. 1,488 863 625 

2012–13 ................................................................................................................................. 1,265 1,038 227 

2013–14 ................................................................................................................................. 1,182 1,166 16 

2014–15 ................................................................................................................................. 41 41 0 

* Students may have more than one loan depending on circumstance. 

The total number of recipients in this scenario is 6,446. This is almost 50 percent 

more students than actually received the TEACH Grant. In another email received 

from PHEAA, it was stated that according to their records 4,330 students received 

the TEACH Grant; our internal records indicate 4,315 individual students received 

a grant at any given timeframe and is a more accurate number to use in any analysis. We also found from our records that 1,965 students received the grant in multiple years and therefore should not be or were counted more than once. 

In terms of which grants were converted, the university does not have access to 

loan conversation data because it is post-graduation consequently, we cannot say for 

certain which individuals specifically converted their grant(s). To make an estimate, 

we did investigate whether or not those who received the TEACH Grant had graduated yet or perhaps graduated with another degree outside of teaching. We also 

took into account that not all who graduate with a teaching degree may enter the 

field of teaching and that not all students who have received the grants have completed their degrees at this point (e.g., 2013–14 students most likely are still enrolled). Taking all of the information into consideration, our results are as follows: 

74 

Revised Student Receiving the Federal TEACH Grant at ASU—as of 4/1/14

Have Not 

Graduated 

Yet 

Graduated 

Outside 

College 

Graduated 

From College 

Total 

Number 

of Students 

Percent 

Potential For 

Conversion† 

[In percent] 

Total Possible Students 2012 And Prior‡ ................. 504 85 1,799 2,388 24.66 

Totals Assuming 80 percent of MLFTC Graduates 

are Teaching‡ ..................................................... 39.73 

Total Students who Span Multiple Years Of Aid Disbursement: ......................................................... 1965 

† For 2012 data forward, Potential Conversion Percent only includes those graduating outside of the College as students not yet graduated after 2012 may still be enrolled in the College. 

‡ Excludes aid that has continued in 2013 or 2014 as some of those students may be still enrolled in the College and not in a conversion 

stage. 

Based on our findings, we conclude that the 39.73 percent figure is a more reasonable figure of loan conversion rate. Of course, we recognize that without a student 

level loan data file a perfect figure cannot be achieved. However, we believe our 

methodology for calculating the percentage was more reasonable than summative, 

duplicative data accounts. 

Question 2. Please discuss the obstacles to creating more teacher residencies or 

other programs that place a greater emphasis on clinical preparation and what can 

the Federal Government do to help schools of education overcome these barriers. 

Answer 2. The biggest obstacle is an adherence to past (and often ineffective) 

practices and a lack of openness to change. Perhaps if teacher preparation programs 

had to report data about the success of their students, they would have to face their 

own failures and see their own successes. That is the biggest challenge: failure to 

improve. Other major ‘‘obstacles’’ but necessary components are: 

• Implementing a residency model is an expensive venture for colleges of education and preservice teachers. Putting a full-time clinical person onsite is far more 

expensive than hiring an army of part time supervisors who have no connection to 

the program. (This is centrally important.) • Students completing a full-time residency while taking coursework need financial support beyond what is typically available to undergraduate students. This includes funding for professional clothing, transportation, and teaching materials 

which is often not covered by grants and student loans. We have raised tens of thousands of dollars for our residency students. And we have worked with other agencies, like the Phoenix Suns, to give stipends and scholarships. • Developing deep and mutually responsible partnerships with school takes commitment over the long haul. From both sides. • Getting full-time tenure track and clinical faculty to talk about how to best prepare teachers is necessary to provide best research-based effective teaching practices. 

• Implementing a performance assessment to all completers which has validity 

and trained evaluators to ensure reliability. 

• Collecting data on the effectiveness of the program with a consistent feedback 

mechanism for improvement. 

The Federal Government can raise expectations and highlight exemplars. The 

question is whether to use a carrot or a stick. Probably both are necessary. Using 

title II reporting data to evaluate programs and provide feedback is centrally important. 

RESPONSE OF TIMOTHY DALY TO QUESTIONS OF SENATOR BENNET, SENATOR MURRAY

AND SENATOR WARREN

SENATOR BENNET

Question 1. What indicators and metrics should the Federal Government be asking teacher preparation programs and States to report? 

Answer 1. As we indicated in our April 18 letter to Chairman Harkin and Ranking Member Alexander for the record, we recommend that Congress adopt an almost 

entirely new approach to title II that focuses on collecting data that focuses on the 

outcomes realized by teachers once they are in the classroom. This involves collecting only baseline information from preparation programs—data related to student enrollment and program completion, in aggregate and broken out by affinity 

groups and certification type according to State law. States should collect and aggregate employment data for all teachers, indicating their preparation program. States 

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should then math that data with preparation programs on a 1:1 basis where possible or on an aggregate basis by provider as a minimum. This data, linking preparation programs to employment and effectiveness, should be reported by the State 

to the Federal Government. 

Question 2. What should the Federal Government do to help improve the quality 

of programs? If the Federal Government can only accomplish one thing on teacher 

preparation in the Higher Education Act re-authorization, what would that be? 

Answer 2. In a revised approach to title II and title IV (as it affects relevant programs), the Federal Government can drive improvement through three mechanisms: 

1. Data collected under Title II should be collected and reported at a level of granularity that programs can use to improve their operations; for example, overall evaluation ratings for graduates will not sufficiently inform programs as to whether candidates in their program are consistently succeeding or struggling in any particular 

area of their practice. 

2. Data should be presented to preparation programs and teacher candidates in 

a timely fashion—no more than 1 year after a given event occurs. This enables programs to quickly adapt based on trends, and allows candidates to make informed 

choices on where they attend. 

3. The Federal Government should significantly restrict access to title IV funds 

to programs identified by States as low performing. This should include not just access to TEACH grants but all Federal student aid. Whatever burden this places on 

teacher preparation programs in terms of financial aid administration is worth preventing future teacher candidates from accruing debt attending a program that will 

not prepare them for success in the classroom. 

Question 3. What does an intense clinical experience look like for principals-intraining and what programs are doing this well? 

Answer 3. TNTP is just beginning to explore effective clinical experiences for 

school leaders. We are not yet ready to claim that we ourselves have an effective 

approach, nor are we prepared to identify other programs as successful based on the 

indicators that matter most: student success. However, we are happy to share the 

approach we are taking to clinical experience for principals-in-training in our Philadelphia and Camden (N.J.) Pathways to Leadership in Urban Schools (PLUS) programs. 

• Providing dedicated coaching in addition to the mentor principal that the principal-in-training works under, freeing the full-time principal to continue their work 

while ensuring the trainee receives constant feedback and support. 

• Focusing pre-service training and in-service professional development on instructional leadership, trusting mentor principals to provide guidance on building 

leadership and community context while using ‘‘off-stage’’ time to emphasize the importance of helping teachers do their best work possible. 

• Giving full responsibility—with oversight from the mentor principal—for the 

performance and development of a team of 7 to 12 teachers in their placement 

school, again emphasizing that a principal’s primary job is ensuring the effectiveness of their teachers. 

SENATOR MURRAY

The Higher Education Act was last reauthorized in 2008, as the Higher Education 

Opportunity Act. Since then the landscape of higher education has changed and the 

need for high-quality teachers has increased. 

Question 1. What have we learned from research and practice since the last reauthorization in 2008 about what are the most essential components/practices in preparing successful novice educators? Both in terms of how to design clinical experiences and coursework?

Answer 1. Since 2008, we have learned that the traditional approach to training 

novice teachers—a training that is inch-deep, mile-wide, heavy on theory and light 

on practice—fails to prepare the majority of new teachers for success in the classroom. We have also learned that first year teachers perform at different levels, and 

that their performance in the first year is a strong predictor of their performance 

in years to come. Put simply: a teacher who makes a strong start is more likely to 

be an effective teacher in their fifth year than a teacher who struggles. The chart 

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1 Atteberry, A., Loeb, S., & Wyckoff, J. (2013). Do first impressions matter? Improvement in 

early career teacher effectiveness. Calder Working Paper 90. Washington, DC: National Center 

for the Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER). 

on the following page summarizes research from a 2013 research paper1 from academics at the University of Virginia and Stanford, showing that early success is remarkably predictive of success in future years. 

At TNTP, we have also learned that a new approach to training—one that focuses 

squarely on the skills most important for early classroom success—can prepare more 

teachers to be effective in their first year. We identified these skills—Clear Delivery 

of Instruction, Maintaining High Academic Expectations, Maintaining High Behavioral Expectations, and Using Time Effectively—through analysis of our own Teaching Fellows programs. We now focus our pre-service training (the summer training 

our Fellows receive before entering the classroom) on these skills, waiting to layer 

additional skills and content—and withholding access to the classroom—until these 

foundational skills are mastered. Fellows practice the skills repeatedly via on-stage 

teaching (during summer school) and off-stage practice with their peers. They also 

receive real-time feedback from coaches—themselves effective teachers hired from 

local schools. 

These elements—focus, practice, and feedback—represent the core of what we 

have discovered is the most effective approach to clinical training. While other programs may take different approaches, we believe the most successful are those that 

have adopted a similar framework. 

Question 2. As we think about how to best target the Federal investment in educator preparation programs, what are the lessons learned from the Teacher Quality 

Partnership Grants? How can the program be enhanced through this next reauthorization? 

Answer 2. TNTP has not participated in a Teacher Quality Partnership Grant, 

and thus respectfully withholds commentary on lessons learned from these programs. 

SENATOR WARREN

The thing that makes teacher preparation so important is the very same thing 

that makes it so challenging: it is a high-stakes endeavor. When teachers enter the 

classroom, they need to be fully prepared, because students rely on them—and students don’t have a year or two to wait while their teachers get up to speed. 

Teacher residency programs that emphasize clinical experience as well as classroom learning are one promising way to help new teachers get experience before 

taking on sole responsibility for a classroom. The Boston Teacher Residency is a program that gives aspiring teachers an opportunity to engage in a year-long classroom 

apprenticeship combined with college coursework. Early analyses, including one of 

the Boston Teacher Residency, suggest that teacher-residents have better retention 

rates and greater effectiveness in the classroom than their peers in the long term. 


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Question. Please discuss the obstacles to creating more teacher residencies or 

other programs that place a greater emphasis on clinical preparation and what can 

the Federal Government do to help schools of education overcome these barriers. 

Answer. There are many obstacles to expanding teacher residencies, but two 

greatest barriers are arduous and arbitrary program approval processes and access 

to funding. Program approvals vary State by State, and the Federal Government is 

ill-positioned to force States to change these processes. However, we hope that by 

adopting some of the stronger data collection and reporting practices described earlier in these responses and in our April 18 letter to the record, States themselves 

will use the new data at their hands to reform program approval processes and 

focus on effectiveness rather than institutional inputs. 

Funding is an equally challenging barrier. To encourage people to pursue a new 

career but require that they participate in full-time training, they must have the 

opportunity to either earn a full-time salary or—like others who learn full-time— 

access Federal student aid. There are some successful teacher residencies, as well 

as non-residency programs such as ours that still emphasize clinical experience, that 

have found ways to make this financial calculation work for both the districts we 

serve and the candidates we train, but it is extremely expensive. 

In the case of residency programs, districts pay upwards of $20,000 per teacher 

to help cover expenses—and those teacher candidates often still need to take out 

loans. At TNTP, we face the choice of privately fundraising to keep our program 

sustainable or to significantly raise our tuition—tuition for which our Fellows cannot access Federal financial aid. Our district partners can pay no more, no matter 

how critical their shortage in these hard to staff schools and subjects. 

The Federal Government can help to address this by opening access to title IV 

aid—especially Pell Grants—to post-baccalaureate teacher preparation programs 

outside of institutes of higher education as well as to degree-granting programs. 

Presently, candidates who are eligible for a Pell can get one for a post-baccalaureate 

teaching program, but only at an IHE. This prohibits them from choosing programs 

like ours or residencies that they may prefer. This hurts the diversity of the teaching profession, as many university programs are outside the cost reach of diverse 

candidates even with a Pell award. Other forms of title IV aid should also be opened 

to non-IHE programs so they can compete on an equal plane with those that grant 

master’s degrees. 

[Whereupon, at 4:07 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

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