Teacher Preparation Program Accountability:
Alaska

Analysis of Alaska's policies

Alaska's approval process for its traditional and alternate route teacher preparation programs does not hold programs accountable for the quality of the teachers they produce.

Most importantly, Alaska does not collect or report data that connect student achievement gains to teacher preparation programs.

The state also fails to collect other objective, meaningful data to measure the performance of teacher preparation programs, and it does not it apply any transparent, measurable criteria for conferring program approval. 

Further, in the past three years, no programs in the state have been identified as low performing—an additional indicator that programs lack accountability.

Alaska's website also does not include a report card that allows the public to review and compare program performance.

There is some overlap of accreditation and state approval. Review teams are comprised solely of NCATE/CAEP members, and the state has delegated its program review process to NCATE/CAEP. Programs must substantially meet NACTE/CAEP standards. According to the NCATE/CAEP website, Alaska requires national accreditation; however, this requirement is not articulated in the regulations. 

Citation

4 AAC 12.308 Title II State Reports https://title2.ed.gov www.ncate.org

Recommendations for Alaska

Collect data that connect student achievement gains to teacher preparation programs. 

As one way to measure whether programs are producing effective classroom teachers, Alaska should consider the academic achievement gains of students taught by programs' graduates, averaged over the first three years of teaching. Data that are aggregated to the institution (e.g., combining elementary and secondary programs) rather than disaggregated to the specific preparation program are not useful for accountability purposes. Such aggregation can mask significant differences in performance among programs.

Gather other meaningful data that reflect program performance. 

Although measures of student growth are an important indicator of program effectiveness, they cannot be the sole measure of program quality for several reasons, including the fact that many programs may have graduates whose students do not take standardized tests. The accountability system must therefore include other objective measures that show how well programs are preparing teachers for the classroom, such as: 

1.    Evaluation results from the first and/or second year of teaching;

2.    Satisfaction ratings by school principals and teacher supervisors of programs' student teachers, using a standardized form to permit program comparison;

3.    Average raw scores of teacher candidates on licensing tests, including academic proficiency, subject matter and professional knowledge tests;

4.    Number of times, on average, it takes teacher candidates to pass licensing tests; and

5.    Five-year retention rates of graduates in the teaching profession.

Establish the minimum standard of performance for each category of data. 

Merely collecting the types of data described above is insufficient for accountability purposes. The next and perhaps more critical step is for Alaska to establish precise minimum standards for teacher preparation program performance for each category of data. Programs should then be held accountable for meeting these standards, and there should be consequences for failing to do so, including loss of program approval.

Publish an annual report card on the state's website. 

Alaska should produce an annual report card that shows all the data the state collects on individual teacher preparation programs, which should be published on the state's website at the program level for the sake of public transparency. Data should be presented in a manner that clearly conveys whether programs have met performance standards.  

Maintain full authority over teacher preparation program approval.

Alaska should ensure that it is the state that considers the evidence of program performance and makes the decision about whether programs should continue to be authorized to prepare teachers. 

State response to our analysis

Alaska recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis. The state also included a statement from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) asserting that this is a fairly new development in the field of education and that states throughout the United States are struggling with how to fairly implement a program that would hold programs accountable for the quality of their graduates. At UAF, teachers and administrators are surveyed regarding the quality of the teachers produced by the UAF secondary licensure program. Alaska's district superintendents and district representatives as stakeholders are gathered and surveyed regarding the quality of the UAF trained administrators and teachers.

Last word

While some states have recently focused more attention on teacher preparation program accountability, it is not a new development.  In addition to federal requirements in this area, all states authorize institutions to offer teacher preparation programs and have always had a responsibility to make that authorization meaningful.