Program Reporting Requirements: Michigan

Teacher Preparation Policy

Goal

The state's approval process for teacher preparation programs should hold programs accountable for the quality of the teachers they produce. This goal was reorganized in 2021.

Does not meet goal
Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2021). Program Reporting Requirements: Michigan results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/MI-Program-Reporting-Requirements-89

Analysis of Michigan's policies

Minimum Standards of Performance: Michigan no longer sets and makes public minimum standards of performance for programs.

Previously, program performance was compared to these standards in the annual Educator Preparation Institution (EPI) score reports. Programs earned points based on three criteria: passage rates on the Michigan Tests for Teacher Certification (MTTC); satisfaction and perception data from surveys administered to teacher candidates and candidate supervisors, twice annually; and evaluation ratings of program completers' effectiveness in the classroom. However, the state is no longer publishing EPI reports.

Program Accountability: Michigan state policy requires programs to submit data "for a determination of its annual teacher preparation provider performance score."  However, the state no longer publishes Educator Preparation Institution reports.

Previously,  all programs were assigned a phase in the state's EPI corrective action system. The phase determined the EPI's reported performance category and thus the corrective action requirements expected for the next year. The state mandates that "a phase number of 0 or 1 results in a reported category of Satisfactory; a phase number of 2 or 3 results in a reported category of At Risk; and a phase number of 4 through 6 results in a reported category of Low Performing." Programs in the Low Performing category must take corrective action or they may be shut down. However, it appears the state is no longer issuing these ratings.

State Report Cards: Michigan no longer publishes annual report cards showing the data the state has collected on individual teacher preparation programs and the programs' performance against the state's standards.

Program Approval Process: Michigan does not maintain full authority over the teacher preparation program approval process. Instead, the state requires that programs are approved by the state's Office of Educator Excellence (OEE) for initial approval and for reapproval when standards for individual endorsement programs are updated, regardless of the program's national accreditation status. Once full approval is granted, ongoing program approval is based on national accreditation through Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) or via a state review by the OEE.

Citation

Recommendations for Michigan

Establish the minimum standards of performance for each category of data.
Michigan should establish precise minimum standards for teacher preparation program performance for each category of data it collects to help clarify expectations regarding program quality.

Ensure that criteria for program approval result in greater accountability.
Michigan should ensure that programs are held accountable for meeting minimum standards of performance, and that the state's accountability system is sufficient to differentiate performance among programs, including alternate route programs. The state should establish clear follow-up actions for programs failing to meet these standards, including remediation or loss of program approval as appropriate. For programs exceeding minimum standards, Michigan should consider finding effective ways to disseminate best practices.

Publish an annual report card on the state's website.
Michigan should produce an annual report card that clearly displays program-level data the state collects on individual teacher preparation programs. This report card should be publicly available on the state's website, at a minimum. Data should be presented in a manner that transparently conveys whether programs have met performance standards.

Maintain full authority over the process for approving teacher preparation programs.

While Michigan retains authority over initial program approval, the state should not cede its program renewal authority to another accrediting body; instead, the state should ensure that it is the entity that directly considers the evidence of program performance and makes the final determination of whether programs should continue to be authorized to prepare teachers.

State response to our analysis

Michigan indicates that it still calculates the EPI Performance Score to monitor performance of providers and publishes the final label within the federally required Title II reporting each year. The calculation of performance is undergoing a redesign and is not being publicly published as it undergoes the conversion, piloting, and validation of the new score.

Michigan asserted that it does maintain full authority over the process for approving teacher preparation programs. Earning and maintaining national accreditation is a requirement for maintenance of ongoing institutional approval to operate as an educator preparation institution, but processes for approval for specific programs of study (as well as recommendations for closure) are governed entirely by the MDE's Office of Educator Excellence (OEE). When standards for individual endorsement programs are updated, the OEE engages all EPIs with existing programs in the updated fields to submit a program application for review and re-approval, regardless of an EPI's accreditation status with CAEP or an individual program's accreditation with a specialized professional association. As part of the site visit for CAEP accreditation, OEE representatives review and update records of the EPI's program approvals to ensure that all programs being offered have passed review under the current preparation standards for each field, as well as review individual programs' licensure test data with the EPI to ensure that candidates demonstrate comparable proficiency across all pathways within a given endorsement field (major, minor, etc.).

Updated: March 2021

How we graded

1D: Program Reporting Requirements 

  • Minimum Standards: The state should establish a minimum standard of performance for each category of data that is collected.
  • Articulated Consequences for Failure to Meet Minimum Standards: The state should have articulated consequences for programs failing to meet minimum standards of performance or other program review criteria and should require specific steps to develop a remediation plan. Program accountability should include the possibility of the loss of program approval.
  • Annual Reporting: The state should publish an annual report card that provides data collected for each individual teacher preparation program as part of the program approval process or the report card provides data that indicates the quality of preparation provided by an institution or program (e.g. licensure pass rates, teaching effectiveness of program graduates, employer satisfaction survey data).
  • Approval Authority: The state should retain full authority over its process approving teacher preparation programs and should not grant any approval authority to accrediting bodies.
Minimum Standards
One-quarter of the total goal score is earned based on the following:

  • One-quarter credit: The state will earn one-quarter of a point if minimum standards of performance are set for each category of data the teacher preparation programs are required to report.

Articulated Consequences for Failure to Meet Minimum Standards

One-quarter of the total goal score is earned based on the following:

  • One-quarter credit: The state will earn one-quarter of a point if it holds teacher preparation programs accountable, and clearly articulates the consequences for failing to meet the minimum standards, which may include loss of program approval.

Annual Reporting
One-quarter of the total goal score is earned based on the following:

  • One-quarter credit: The state will earn one-quarter of a point if it publishes data collected as part of the state's program approval process of individual teacher preparation programs on an annual basis or, the state will earn one-quarter of a point if it publishes data that indicates the quality of preparation provided by an institution or program (e.g. licensure pass rates, teaching effectiveness of program graduates, employer satisfaction survey data) on an annual basis.

Approval Authority

One-quarter of the total goal score is earned based on the following:

  • One-quarter credit: The state will earn one-quarter of a point if it retains full authority over the process for approving teacher preparation programs.

Research rationale

The state should examine a number of factors when measuring the performance of and approving teacher preparation programs.[1] Although the quality of both the subject-matter preparation and professional sequence is crucial, there are also additional measures that can provide the state and the public with meaningful, readily understandable indicators of how well programs are doing when it comes to preparing teachers to be successful in the classroom.[2]

States have made great strides in building data systems with the capacity to provide evidence of teacher performance.[3] These same data systems can be used to link teacher effectiveness to the teacher preparation programs from which they came. States should make such data, as well as other objective measures that go beyond licensure test pass rates, central components of their teacher preparation program approval processes, and they should establish precise standards for performance that are more useful for accountability purposes.[4]

National accrediting bodies, such as CAEP, are raising the bar, but are no substitute for states' own policy. A number of states now have somewhat more rigorous academic standards for admission by virtue of requiring that programs meet CAEP's accreditation standards. However, whether CAEP will uniformly uphold its standards (especially as they have already backtracked on the GPA requirement) and deny accreditation to programs that fall short of these admission requirements remains to be seen.[5] Clear state policy would eliminate this uncertainty and send an unequivocal message to programs about the state's expectations.[6]


[1] For general information about teacher preparation program approval see Rotherham, A. J., & Mead, S. (2004). Back to the future: The history and politics of state teacher licensure and certification. In F. Hess, A. J. Rotherham, & K. Walsh (Eds.), A qualified teacher in every classroom (11-47). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. Retrieved from https://www.nctq.org/nctq/research/1109818629821.pdf
[2] For additional discussion and research of how teacher education programs can add value to their teachers, see National Council on Teacher Quality. (2017). Teacher Prep Review. Retrieved from http://www.nctq.org/teacherPrep/2016/home.do
[3] Walsh, K., & Jacobs, S. (2007). Alternative certification isn't alternative. Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Retrieved from
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED498382.pdf

[4] For additional research on the status of teacher quality and the strengths and weaknesses of accreditation programs and policies in the U.S., see: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education. (2010). The secretary's seventh annual report on teacher quality: A highly qualified teacher in every classroom. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/teachprep/t2r7.pdf
[5] For a discussion of the lack of evidence that national accreditation status enhances teacher preparation programs' effectiveness, see: Ballou, D., & Podgursky, M. (1999, July). Teacher training and licensure: A layman's guide. Marci Kanstoroom and Chester E. Finn., Jr. (eds.), In Better teachers, better schools (pp. 45-47). Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.edexcellence.net/sites/default/files/publication/pdfs/btrtchrs_10.pdf; Greenberg, J., & Walsh, K. (2008, June). No common denominator: The preparation of elementary teachers in mathematics by America's education schools. Washington, DC: National Council on Teacher Quality. Retrieved from http://www.nctq.org/dmsView/No_Common_Denominator_NCTQ_Report; Walsh, K., Glaser, D., & Wilcox, D. (2006, May). What education schools aren't teaching about reading and what elementary teachers aren't learning. Washington, DC: National Council on Teacher Quality. Retrieved from http://www.nctq.org/dmsView/What_Ed_Schools_Arent_Teaching_About_Reading_NCTQ_Report
[6] See Walsh, K., Joseph, N., & Lewis, A. (2016, November). Within our grasp: Achieving higher admissions standards in teacher prep. 2016 State Teacher Policy Yearbook Report Series. Retrieved from http://www.nctq.org/dmsView/Admissions_Yearbook_Report