Teacher Preparation Policy
Minimum Standards of Performance: New Mexico does not set minimum standards of performance for the categories of data that programs must report. Programs must provide data as part of their Educator Accountability Report (EAR) including, "1) student achievement for all students; (2) teacher and administrator retention, particularly in the first three years of a teacher's or administrator's career; and (3) the percentage of candidates who pass the New Mexico teacher assessments for initial licensure on the first attempt." However, the state does not set minimum standards of performance for these data.
Program Accountability: Although New Mexico does not set minimum standards of performance, New Mexico does delineate
consequences, including
conferring level one probation for programs that do not meet objectives outlined in their Educator Accountability Report (EAR) "or if the certified review team identifies an issue during the comprehensive state approval site visit."Programs can also have their approval revoked for not "exiting level one or level two probation status within two academic years; or failing to meet reporting or compliance requirements." However, it is unclear both how the objectives are defined and how programs are measured objectively against these criteria.
State Report Cards:
New Mexico requires annual reports to be produced and made public that include the data collected on individual teacher preparation programs, but these reports have not yet been made available.
Program Approval Process: New Mexico maintains full authority over teacher preparation program approval.The state also conducts its own program reviews.
Establish the minimum standards of performance for each category of data.
New Mexico 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 New Mexico 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 New Mexico 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, New Mexico should consider finding
effective ways to disseminate best practices.
Publish an annual report card on the state's website.
New Mexico is commended for taking steps toward producing an annual scorecard. New Mexico should ensure that its scorecard clearly displays all program-level data the state collects on individual teacher preparation programs and will be available on the state's website. Data should be presented in a manner that transparently conveys whether programs have met performance standards.
New Mexico did not respond to NCTQ's request to review this analysis for accuracy.
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]