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Vol. 1, No. 1, August 2012, pp. 3-4   
 
 
 
 
U.S. Department of Education’s Teacher Education Reform:  
How Does Your Program Rate? 
 
James E. Marshall, Paul L. Beare, and Patrick Newell 
California State University, Fresno 
 
 
 
 
 

U.S. Department of Education’s Teacher Education Reform: 
How Does Your Program Rate? 

 
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and President Barack Obama’s plan for teacher 

education reform and improvement was described in the document Our Future, Our Teachers 
(2011).  The rationale for reform is that “many of our teacher preparation programs fall short” (p. 
5).  The measures of this are stated as “only 23% of all teachers come from the top third of 
college graduates,” “only 50% of current teacher candidates receive supervised clinical training,” 
and “more than three in five education school alumni report that their education school did not 
prepare them for classroom realities’ (p. 5).  An added criticism is the teacher work force does 
not reflect the communities they teach.  It was reported that 14% of the teachers come from 
diverse groups while 38% of students do so.  In other venues, Secretary Duncan has repeatedly 
stated that the majority of teachers say their university preservice education left them unprepared 
for the classroom and added that 67% to 82% of principals say they are dissatisfied with the 
preparation their teachers have received through university programs (U.S. Department of 
Education, 2011).   

The recommendations of the report to “reform” teacher education include performance-
based indicators of quality, tracking job placement and retention rates, surveying program 
graduates and their principals, and examining academic growth of elementary and secondary 
students taught by program graduates.  While the evidence presented for the need of reform may 
be questionable and misleading, as will be explained, the recommendations have potential worth.  
We posit that the other “reforms” are largely standard operating procedure and the attacks on 
teacher preparation “credential mills” should be separated by the Department of Education from 
attacks on the field in general. 
  



     J. Marshall, P. Beare, P. Newell 4 

Criticisms by Department of Education 
 

Top Performing University Students Do Not Enter Credential Programs 
Since fall 2010, 877 applicants have been admitted into one of the three main teaching 

credential programs at California State University, Fresno.  Students are admitted after obtaining 
a bachelor’s degree and documenting subject matter competence by either obtaining an approved 
content area bachelor’s degree or passing a high-stakes content-knowledge standardized test 
administered by the State.  California does not offer undergraduate degrees in education, thus all 
admitted candidates come from fields other than education.  For AY 10-11, the mean GPA of the 
877 teacher candidates, prior to taking education courses, was 3.25.  Campus-wide, the 3551 
bachelor’s degree recipients had an average GPA of 3.09.  The eight undergraduate schools and 
college GPAs ranged from 2.98 (Agriculture) to 3.21 (Health and Human Service) thus all were 
lower than the credential student mean.  Teacher education at Fresno State gets excellent 
candidates. 

 
Percent Teachers and Principals Rating Teachers as Prepared 

Beginning with the 2000-2001 academic year, the California State University (CSU) has 
conducted an annual evaluation of teacher preparation termed the Systemwide Evaluation of 
Professional Teacher Preparation Programs (SEPTPP). The purpose of the evaluation is to 
monitor the effectiveness of the California State University system’s 22 colleges and schools of 
education and to provide data to help programs make needed improvements in the preparation of 
teachers.  Each campus annually sends to the CSU Chancellor’s Office (CO) Center for Teacher 
Quality (CTQ) a list of former teacher candidates at that campus who, during a prior 12-month 
period, met the standards for state certification as K-12 teachers. The CO enlists the assistance of 
State agencies to identify the school sites of the completers, ultimately resulting in the 
identification of approximately 85% of program completers (CTQ, 2009).  

The SEPTPP consists of separate but parallel 110-item surveys for each of three 
credentials (Elementary, Secondary, and Special Education).   One survey for each credential 
type is given to program graduates after their first year of teaching, and the second survey form 
is given to their employment supervisors. The instruments were designed to collect information 
about the extent to which the teachers perceived the effectiveness of their program to prepare 
them for important teaching responsibilities and the extent to which their program coursework 
and fieldwork were professionally valuable and helpful to them during their initial year of 
teaching (CTQ, 2009).  

Ratings were indicated on a four-point Likert-type scale with the following choices: Well 
Prepared, Adequately Prepared, Somewhat Prepared, and Not At All Prepared.  Each campus 
receives data on their own graduates and the system’s performance overall every year.  Each 
education program uses the data for program improvement and evaluation; its reliability and 
validity has been supported by a number of external studies (Beare et al, 2012).  System-wide 
responses from a total of 8575 program completers and 6101 employment supervisors of 2009-
10 graduates were recently released.  The percent of respondents in each of three credential 
categories who rated the overall effectiveness of the credential program as either well or 
adequately preparing the graduate for the rigors of teaching in the schools appear in Table 1. 

 
 

  



       USDE Teacher Education Reform     5 

Table 1 
 
Number of respondent program completers and employment supervisors (and percentage) rating 
the teacher as being either well or adequately prepared for the classroom by the CSU teacher 
preparation program for three teaching credentials. 
 
   Program Completers   Employment Supervisors 
 
Credential  Number % Well /Adeq  Number % Well /Adeq  
         Prepared        Prepared 
Elementary 
Education  4744   77%  3365   86% 
 
Secondary 
Education  2774   73%  2034   81% 
 
Special  
Education  1057   74%  702   86% 

 
 

This data dramatically contradicts Secretary Duncan’s statements that 60% of teachers 
report they are inadequately prepared for teaching and 67% - 82% of principals saying the 
teachers were unprepared for the schools.  The CSU data shows that a mean of 75% of the 
teachers rate their preparation in the “well prepared or adequately prepared” range.  A mean of 
84% of supervisors so rate the first year teachers.  These are widely disparate numbers, not 
possibly explained by some small error of measurement. 

 
Job Placement and Retention 

The Administration stated that programs should be rated on the placement rate of their 
graduates and the years the graduates are retained in jobs.  Almost a priori, job placement 
depends in large part on the economy, particularly the economy in the region in which a program 
is located.  Our University is located in the city identified as number one in urban poverty by the 
Brookings Institute (Metropolitan Policy Program, 2008).  Population growth in a region and 
competition from other teacher preparation institutions in the area also directly affect the 
placement rates of programs. 

Teacher preparation was found to be a minor variable in teacher retention in California in 
a comprehensive examination by Ken Futernick (2007).  Futernick’s survey’s of 6000 teachers 
showed poor preparation programs to be the 32nd most highly mentioned reason for leaving 
teaching teaching, mentioned by only 10% of dissatisfied teachers who quit positions.  The 
highest rated reasons for leaving, named by over half the respondents, were bureaucratic 
impediments and poor district supports, closely followed by unsupportive principals and poor 
pay.  Nearly 40% of those who left the profession stated they disliked the negative public image 
of teachers.  Given this information, the impact of the Administration’s statements about 
teaching and teacher preparation would seem to be a much greater cause of teachers leaving the 
profession than the quality of a preparation program. 

 



     J. Marshall, P. Beare, P. Newell 6 

Recommendations by the Administration 
 
Teacher Performance Assessment 

The members of The Renaissance Group [TRG] teacher education consortium, as well as 
researchers in Oregon and elsewhere studied and developed teacher work samples over 15 years 
ago.  These evolved into what is now commonly termed a Teacher Performance Assessment 
[TPA] (Torgerson, Macy, Beare, & Tanner, 2010).  California requires a state approved, valid 
Teacher Performance Assessment be passed by any teacher wishing to be credentialed 
(California Commission on Teacher Credentialing [CCTC], 2006).  While Torgerson et al. found 
the TPA to be useful in program approval efforts, other research has found a poor relationship 
with traditional supervisor evaluations and question its use as a high-stakes assessment 
(Sandholtz & Shea, 2012).  This is neither a new nor a revolutionary suggestion. 
 
Surveys of Graduates and Principals 

As stated, all schools in the California State University already do this, and have done so 
for over a decade (Beare et al., 2012).  Teacher preparation programs accredited by NCATE 
have been advised to do this for decades.  One of the authors of this manuscript was assigned this 
task in the 1980s at his university.  Again, this demand for reform is one that is standard 
operating procedure for virtually all state universities, colleges, or accredited schools. 

 
Tracking K-12 Achievement Associated with Teacher Preparation 

This recommendation is perhaps the most interesting.  Teachers are an important variable 
in student learning, perhaps the most important (Darling-Hammond, 2006).  Research by the 
CTQ has indicated that by using careful value-added methodology, one can determine an effect 
size from different models of teacher preparation.  These effects may exceed the effects of other 
variables traditionally considered important, such as student socio-economic level or English 
learner status (Wright et al, 2012).  The effects are however small compared to the effect of prior 
learning.  However, certain findings are clear. For example, CSU prepared teachers obtain 
significantly higher math and language arts achievement than teachers not prepared in the CSU 
(Young & Wright, 2012). Even with the complete collaboration of five large school districts in 
the state, it has taken the CTQ multiple years to develop even preliminary analyses of the effect 
of certain teacher preparation variables on achievement.  States (or the federal government) need 
to provide tools and resources to teacher preparation institutions should they seriously expect 
them to develop accurate methodology to determine program effects on K-12 achievement.  
There needs to be accessible systems for tracking teachers accurately to determine the effect size 
of different teacher education programs and/or approaches.  

 
 

Summary 
 

The Administration bases its rationale for reform on false information or information 
gathered from the worst programs, likely for-profit, non-traditional programs.  It claims that poor 
students go on to be teachers, that graduates and administrators condemn preparation programs, 
and that the programs have responsibility for teachers leaving the field.  The data indicate these 
claims are patently false when referencing schools such as those in The Renaissance Group.  In 
addition, the suggested reforms are already largely in place in such institutions. 



       USDE Teacher Education Reform     7 

 
 

Conclusion 
 

Secretary Duncan and the Department of Education attack the entire field of education 
and blame it for the nation’s woes.  The entire profession of teacher education has become “the 
usual suspects.”  In reality, all TRG institutions and almost all public university programs are 
reputable and engaged in serious, self-initiated improvement efforts.  There are, of course, for-
profit schools that are irresponsible and execrable.  Most of us have experience with teachers 
who were products of these programs.  The authors have had conversations with graduates of 
such programs who state, “I learned nothing in the program and completed most courses in a 
weekend.  It would have been bad if I didn’t already know how to teach,” and “I just owed it to 
my family to take the easy route.” While many districts will not hire graduates of these 
programs, others end up in classrooms, failing our students.  Mr. Duncan should begin to 
differentiate between this type of disgrace and legitimate teacher preparation. 

 
  



     J. Marshall, P. Beare, P. Newell 8 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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       USDE Teacher Education Reform     9 

References 
 

Beare, P., Marshall, J., Torgerson, C., Tracz, S., & Chiero, R. (2012). Toward a culture of 

evidence: Factors affecting survey assessment of teacher preparation. Teacher Education 

Quarterly, 39, 159-173. 

California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. (2006). Summary of commission 

responsibilities for major provisions of SB 1209. Retrieved from 

http://www.ctc.ca.gov/educator-prep/ SB1209/default.html 

California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. (2009).  Alternative pathways to certification 

(intern) program: Program report. Sacramento, CA: Author. 

Darling-Hammond, L. (2006). Assessing teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 57, 

120-138. 

Futernick, K. (2007). A possible dream: Retaining California’s teaches so all children can learn. 

Sacramento, CA: California State University. 

Metropolitan Policy Program. (2008). The enduring challenge of concentrated poverty in 

America: Case studies from communities across the U.S. Richmond: Federal Reserve 

Bank and the Brookings Institute.  

Sandholtz, J. M., & Shea, L. M. (2012). Predicting performance: A comparison of university 

supervisors' predictions and teacher candidates' scores on a teaching performance 

assessment. Journal of Teacher Education, 63, 39-50. 

Torgerson, C., Macy, S., Beare, P., & Tanner, D. (2009). Fresno Assessment of Student 

Teachers:  A teacher performance assessment that informs practice. Issues in Teacher 

Education, 16, 62-82. 



     J. Marshall, P. Beare, P. Newell 10 

United States Department of Education. (2011). Teacher preparation strategy [Online 

presentation]. Retrieved from 

http://www.dartep.org/misc/USDOE_Teacher_Ed_Brief_Deck_110930.pptx 

United States Department of Education (2011). Our future, our teachers: The Obama 

administration’s plan for teacher education reform and improvement. Retrieved from 

http://www.2ed.gov/inits/ed/index/html 

Wright, D., Beare, P., Hovda, R., Spagna, M., Grenot-Scheyer, M., & Young, B. (2012). 

Systemwide assessment of teacher preparation programs and graduates’ ability to effect K-12 

student achievement. Paper presented at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher 

Education Annual Conference, Chicago, IL. 

Young, B., & Wright, D. (2012). Annual teacher education evaluation: CSU effects on K-12 

student learning. Presentation to the CSU Board of Trustees, May 8, 2012. Long Beach, CA.   

 

 
 

 


