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Every bit the parent of children who attended public schools and an educator who has been a teacher of children, a school leader, and at present a teacher-educator and managing director of a teacher-instruction program, I welcome the Obama administration's efforts to ensure that educator preparation programs support their graduates to exercise the accented best for the children entrusted to their care.

Teacher preparation programs
Beverly Falk

How they do this, notwithstanding, tin be helpful or harmful, depending on the kind of information they utilise to concord programs accountable and on what is washed equally a result of collecting that information. Examples of this kind of helpful data that can be used for accountability purposes include:

  • Surveys of graduates and their employers about how well-prepared the graduates are for the many unlike aspects of teaching – this allows faculty to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses and adjust their programs accordingly.
  • Tracking where educational activity-school graduates go and how long they remain in the field of education – this could offer insight to how prepared graduates are for the field, every bit enquiry to date indicates that more poorly prepared teachers drop out more quickly.
  • Statistics about how many teacher education candidates pass performance assessments (used for certification or programme completion) that demonstrate how well they tin actually teach – this information opens our eyes to new directions for instruction and needs in the classroom. Several such performance assessments have recently been adult and are being used in many states to license kickoff teachers – much similar the bar examination in law and the medical licensing exam for physicians. Only as passing rates on these tests are reported for professional person schools in law and medicine, they could exist reported for schools of education, too.

Data that can be harmful, yet, are data that don't reflect the actual work of teachers and/or programs and that are used punitively rather than for improvement. An example of this kind of accountability practice that is not only unhelpful merely also harmful is the Obama administration's proposal to withhold TEACH grants from students in particular universities on the footing of test scores of students who are taught past their graduates.

The idea of evaluating instructor grooming programs using examination scores of students taught by the graduates of those programs, referred to as "value-added measures – VAM," is fraught with issues, not only for evaluating graduates only also for evaluating private teachers. The so-called value-added metrics have been found to be both highly unstable – shifting dramatically from year to year, based in large part on who the teachers teach –- and biased confronting particular groups of teachers, like those who teach new English learners, special education students, and even gifted and talented students who have already hitting the ceiling on the grade-level tests (and therefore cannot show growth on those tests). The National Research Council and several enquiry organizations have published warnings against this kind of utilize, equally have many individual researchers, including Professor Ed Haertel, chairman of the Board on Testing and Assessment of the National Academy of Sciences.

Withholding TEACH grants from universities based on this flawed measure will be a disincentive for schools of educational activity to gear up special educational activity teachers, bilingual teachers, teachers for children in high-demand communities, and others who are likely to net lower VAM scores. Just think what would happen if medical schools were judged based on the number of patients who died in the care of their graduates. What institution would withstand the pressures from such a policy to prepare researchers and caregivers for the poor, the elderly, or those suffering from as-withal uncurable illnesses?

18-carat accountability should be aimed at gathering information that tin can be used to improve existing practices. Capacity-building, not penalization, should be the principle guiding the policies. Many of us who work in teacher teaching take spent many years working on ways to collect and use data to strengthen our work.

Of particular note is the move toward performance assessment (the edTPA – currently used for state certification or program completion in 34 states and over 500 institutions of higher ed), which offers testify about the direct touch on of what we do – how well school of education graduates are able to plan, instruct, and assess – so that they will be set up to teach when they enter the classroom and exist prepared to presume responsibleness for students' lives.

The data nosotros receive from this assessment helps us reflect on and arrange our programs in club to strengthen the effectiveness of our graduates. This kind of accountability practice leads the states to better outcomes and supports our collective ongoing learning.

The network of teacher preparation institutions engaging in this piece of work is nationwide and growing. We would welcome the opportunity to share what nosotros've learned with the Obama Assistants.

Beverly Falk, Ed.D., is professor and director of Graduate Programs in Early Babyhood Education, Urban center Higher of New York.

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Beverly Falk, Ed.D., is professor and director of Graduate Programs in Early Childhood Education, City College of New York.