A new initiative led by the Network for Transforming Educator Preparation is intended to strengthen teacher preparation programs.
The initiative — led by the Council of Chief State School Officers, or CCSSO, and formally called the Network for Transforming Educator Preparation, or NTEP — grew out of a “call to action” that CCSSO issued late last year and adds to the growing momentum to make university-based teacher preparation programs more accountable for student achievement.
While it is questionable if becoming a teacher will become tougher in the seven states that have joined the new network, Mary-Dean Barringer, program director for Education Workforce at CCSSO, says she is not sure, but notes that “it’s going to be different, and I think that’s a good thing, and the states would agree.”
Barringer said the way that teachers are recruited and prepared must “change in pretty dramatic ways” in order to help K-12 students meet new standards and expectations, such as the those espoused by a set of education standards known as the “Common Core.”
The states participating in the two-year pilot project will focus on reform in three areas: licensure, program approval and collecting and analyzing more data to improve teacher prep programs. The seven states that joined NTEP are Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts and Washington.
Barringer said states should measure “how effective the candidates graduating from these programs are at impacting student achievement and student learning.”
Data systems, she said, should be in place to identify programs that are doing “exceptionally well” at preparing teachers and to close programs that “have a long history of not being effective in doing this.”
