Teacher Preparation Policy
Minimum Standards of Performance: North Dakota does not require programs to collect meaningful data, and therefore does not set minimum standards of performance for these data.
Program Accountability: Although North Dakota does not set minimum standards of performance, North Dakota does delineate
consequences. As part of initial and continuing program approval, the state does confer the following statuses: approval, provisional approval, continuing approval, approval with conditions to be met, approval with probation, or denial or revocation of approval. However, the standards on which accountability outcomes are based are not
necessarily performance-based criteria with clearly stated minimum
thresholds.
State Report Cards: North Dakota does not produce and publish an annual report card that shows all the data the state collects on individual teacher preparation programs.
Program Approval Process: North Dakota allows overlap of CAEP accreditation and state approval. Preparation programs have the option of obtaining state or CAEP accreditation. For programs that opt for a CAEP review, accreditation is the sole requirement for continuing program approval.
Establish the minimum standards of performance for each category of data.
North Dakota 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 program accountability decisions are based on minimum standards of performance.
While North Dakota has the structure of a program accountability system,
including follow-up actions for programs failing to meet standards, it
has not set minimum standards it can use to implement this
accountability process. As North Dakota further develops its accountability
system, it should ensure that the system is sufficient to differentiate
performance among programs, including alternate route programs, and that
it is clear at what point a program's approval will be revoked. For
programs exceeding minimum standards, North Dakota should consider finding
effective ways to disseminate best practices.
Publish an annual report card on the state's website.
North Dakota should produce its own annual report card that clearly displays program-level data the state collects on individual teacher preparation programs. The Title II report alone is insufficient, in part because it provides data at the institution, rather than certification program, level. 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.
North Dakota should not cede any of its approval authority to another accrediting body; instead, the state should ensure that it is the entity that directly considers all the evidence of program performance and makes the final determination of whether programs should continue to be authorized to prepare teachers.
North Dakota recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis; however, this analysis was updated subsequent to the state's review.
1D: Program Reporting Requirements
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]