ATLANTA — All 16 Southern Regional Education Board member states have an accountability system for their teacher preparation programs, but a new report from SREB recommends that colleges and universities — not just their schools of education — should be accountable for producing quality teachers.
Only six SREB states (Alabama, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas) currently hold entire institutions responsible for producing these graduates, according to the report, Increasing Accountability for Teacher Preparation Programs.
“Other states should establish similar policies,” said Lynn Cornett, SREB senior vice president. “Education leaders must continue to push for university-wide accountability, higher teacher performance criteria and more research into what makes a teacher preparation program effective.”
The need for states to ensure that teacher preparation programs produce quality teachers for all students has long been critical, the report asserts, but the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, requiring a “highly qualified” teacher in every classroom, has raised the stakes for most states even higher.
Among the recent improvements in some states, Alabama, Kentucky and South Carolina now require on-the-job evaluations of beginning teachers as part of each state’s accountability system. Louisiana has the broadest range of accountability measures in place for teacher preparation programs, and by 2009 the state will examine the student achievement in every new teacher’s classroom as part of the program. Florida now requires graduates to demonstrate all 12 of the Florida Educator Accomplished Practices, according to the report.
In the past five years alone, many SREB states also have nearly doubled the number of teaching licenses issued to persons who completed nontraditional, or “alternative,” teacher programs, especially in subject-shortage areas such as mathematics and science. Kentucky and Texas have more than tripled their numbers. Maryland is developing a system for assessing alternative teacher preparation programs.
“The explosion of alternative programs means that each state must make sure that these programs are held to the same high standards as traditional programs,” Cornett said.
For more information about your state’s accountability system for teacher preparation, contact SREB Communications or see the full report, including state-by-state details, at www.sreb.org.
SREB, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization based in Atlanta, Georgia, advises state education leaders on ways to improve education. SREB was created in 1948 by Southern governors and legislatures to help leaders in education and government work cooperatively to advance education and improve the social and economic life of the region. SREB has 16 member states: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Each is represented by its governor and four gubernatorial appointees.
