Student Achievement and Preparation Program Accountability: A Study of Optional Approaches

Abstract

Accrediting entities, the U.S. Department of Education, and policy makers in a number of states are advocating for teacher education accountability by linking students' performance on state-standardized tests to their teacher and the entity that prepared that teacher. Using student-level test data linked to new teachers and experienced teachers in the same school, the authors explored a number of different ways to organize, analyze, and interpret the findings relative to criteria emerging from current accountability systems for teacher education programs. Among the approaches, the authors introduce a model based on a construct of performance parity and discuss its implications for policy and teacher education programs within the context of today's climate of accountability.