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Vol. 1, No. 1, August 2012, pp. 27-42   
 
 
 
 
The Power of Partnerships in Becoming Accountable for the Impact of  
Teacher Candidates on P-12 Learning 
 
Roger Pankratz 
Western Kentucky University 
 
 
 
 
 

Abstract 

The “Renaissance Partnership”, a consortium of eleven universities and their partner 

schools, was one of the first twenty-five Teacher Quality Enhancement Projects funded in 

1999.  The Project’s two primary goals, “to become accountable for the impact of teacher 

graduates on the students they teach” and “to institutionalize reforms in preparation 

programs,” to a great extent have been achieved.  Successes are attributed to “the power 

of partnerships.”  This paper provides a brief account of the development of the 

Renaissance Partnership and the struggles to achieve project objectives, a description of 

project achievements, a third party evaluator’s summary and, finally, a project director’s 

reflections and conclusions. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
  



          R. Pankratz 
 

28 

The Power of Partnerships in Becoming Accountable for the Impact of  
Teacher Candidates on P-12 Learning 

 
The Renaissance Partnership for Improving Teacher Quality 

 
The Renaissance Partnership consists of eleven universities and their partner schools 

directly involved in a five-year Title II Teacher Quality Enhancement project which began in 
October, 1999.  These partner schools include California State University, Fresno; Eastern 
Michigan University; Emporia State University; Idaho State University; Kentucky State 
University; Longwood University, Virginia; Middle Tennessee State University; Millersville 
University, Pennsylvania; Southeast Missouri State University; University of Northern Iowa; and 
Western Kentucky University. 

All eleven universities are members of the Renaissance Group, a larger consortium of 
about thirty teacher preparation colleges and universities across the country that together produce 
about one of every nine classroom teachers in America.  The presidents, provosts, deans, and 
teacher education directors of Renaissance Group institutions have been meeting semi-annually 
since 1987 to share and encourage all-university strategies that produce quality teachers.  
Representatives of the eleven institutions that comprise the Renaissance Partnership had been 
meeting for about two years before Title II funding was received to design plans to become more 
accountable for the impact of teacher graduates on P-12 students’ learning.  Thus, the focus and 
communication structures among these eleven institutions began more than two years before the 
beginning of the five-year funded Title II Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant. 

 
The Beginning of a Quest 
 

The seeds for the 1999-2004 Title II Renaissance Partnership Project were sown in the 
fall of 1997 when presidents, provosts, and deans from about twenty Renaissance Group 
universities met for their fall conference in San Antonio to consider new strategies for improving 
teacher preparation programs.  The theme of the conference was “accountability for teacher 
preparation”.  A teacher educator who had been highly involved in Kentucky’s school reform 
since 1989 offered a bold proposal:  collect, analyze, and report data on the impact of teacher 
graduates on P-12 student learning and the world will turn their heads to Renaissance Group 
institutions.  While there were skeptics present that thought the suggestion was a “pipe dream,” 
the teacher educator (who authored this paper) was supported by the group and given a small 
grant to pursue this extremely challenging goal. 

In subsequent 1998 spring and 1998 fall meetings of the Renaissance Group, 
representative faculty with expertise in assessment met to consider ideas and strategies for better 
ways to assess teacher candidate performance, especially with respect to evidence that graduates 
can facilitate learning of all students.  Del Schalock from Western Oregon was invited to speak 
about the potential of teacher work samples, a concept he had been developing over the past 
decade.  Also, during the 1998 year, a ten-institution study was conducted that revealed two 
startling facts:  (a) our leading teacher preparation institutions used instructional time teaching 
methods compared to assessment of student learning at a ratio of about 7 to 1 and (b) none of the 
ten institutions had a performance assessment and data management system that included the 
quality components specified by the new NCATE 2000 standards.   



       The Power of Partnerships in Becoming Accountable     29 

All assessment representatives from the ten Renaissance Group institutions that met over 
the next two years agreed that more should be done to develop performance assessment and data 
management systems, but funding for any development at the local level simply did not exist.  At 
a fall meeting in 1998 of the Renaissance Group assessment leaders, participants agreed that 
obtaining support for development programs would be absolutely essential if accountability 
programs were to become a reality. 

In the spring of 1999, two actions were initiated that became the foundation for a five-
year development effort toward performance accountability.  First, a concept paper was 
developed entitled “Becoming Accountable for the Impact of Graduates on Students and 
Schools:  Making Operational the Shift from Teaching to Learning” that was presented at the 
annual meeting of the American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education in February of 
1999 (Pankratz, 1999).  This discussion document expanded on proposals (Barr & Tagg, 1996) 
that we change our focus from teaching to producing student learning.  While teaching was 
important, it had to produce learning and had to relate to results.  This basic concept was applied 
to teacher preparation.   

The second important initiative taken by the Renaissance Group in the spring of 1999 
was the development of a Teacher Quality Enhancement proposal submitted to the Title II 
Teacher Quality Enhancement Renaissance Program.  The request for proposals of the 
Partnership Programs aligned with the goals of the Renaissance Group’s quest for accountability 
for P-12 student learning.  The Renaissance Grant proposal involved ten universities and their 
partner schools and presented a five-year plan to (a) become accountable for the impact of 
teacher candidates and graduates on P-12 student learning, and (b) to improve teacher 
performance in key areas and show an increase in teacher’s ability to facilitate learning of all 
students.  The proposal also presented a work plan for six project objectives that all institutions 
would address: 

 
• develop an accountability system that regularly collects and reports data on the 

impact of their graduates on student learning;  
• use teacher work samples in their teacher education programs as a means of 

improving teaching skills and increasing the teacher’s impact on student learning; 
• implement a team mentoring model consisting of school practitioners, arts and 

science faculty, and teacher educators that facilitates the ability of teachers to impact 
student learning in partner schools; 

• modify, revise, and improve teacher preparation programs to address teacher impact 
on P-12 learning; 

• build an electronic network among all Renaissance institutions and partner schools to 
share information, materials, ideas, and data related to improvement of teacher quality 
and student learning; and 

• design and conduct research programs that link teacher performance to P-12 student 
learning. 
 

The Renaissance Partnership proposal was approved and a USDOE grant of $5,730,011, 
supplemented with $3,573,921 non-federal funds, was awarded in September of 1999.  Western 
Kentucky University was the grantee with subcontracts to nine partnership universities.   



          R. Pankratz 
 

30 

Thus, on October 1, 1999, the Renaissance Partnership for Improving Teacher Quality 
officially began as a five-year development effort.  Idaho State University, the eleventh 
institution, was added to the partnership in the third year of the project. 
 
Building a Partnership to Reform Teacher Preparation Programs 

 
Forming a partnership of individual entities assumes that a collaborative endeavor and 

collective effort can achieve more when working together than operating independently.  This 
was the position of the Title II Partnership Program with respect to colleges of education, 
colleges of arts and sciences, and partner elementary/secondary school programs.  In the 
Renaissance Partnership this three-way collaboration effort occurred at eleven different sites in 
ten states across the country.  These eleven sites prepared about 5,000 new teachers each year.  
Building a dynamic and functional program of teacher preparation reform among different 
entities with different purposes has been a most important but difficult challenge.  The diversity 
of talent and experience across eleven project sites also has been a real strength of innovative 
synergy that contributed to project success. 

The first year of the project began as a series of struggles to get a focus.  While the six 
project objectives framed a clear project vision for the developers of the proposal, they were little 
more than professional platitudes to teacher educators, arts and science faculty, and school 
practitioners across eleven project sites who were expected to implement the project work plan.  
Getting “buy in” to a central project vision by different groups in different geographical areas, 
each with their own agendas, proved to be a difficult challenge.  Commitment to accountability 
systems, the implementation of teacher work samples in all preparation programs, and forming 
mentoring teams for candidates was especially difficult because there were few operating models 
to examine and emulate. 

Even though all Renaissance partner institutions were accredited by NCATE, none had 
systems of performance assessment, data management, and program evaluation that 
operationally met NCATE standards.  And, even more discouraging, a search for operational 
models at NCATE institutions across the country that truly met Standard 2 - Program Evaluation 
came up empty. 

A similar scenario was experienced with teacher work samples.  Although Western 
Oregon University (Schalock & Schalock, 1997) had developed and used teacher work samples 
for the greater part of a decade, the processes and materials used locally among faculty at this 
institution were not directly transportable to Renaissance partners, especially for universities 
such as California State, Fresno and Eastern Michigan that each prepared nearly 2,000 teachers 
per year. 

Most of Year One activities were directed at teacher work samples.  Western Oregon 
University faculty were employed as consultants to share their ideas and experiences.  Site 
representatives traveled to Western Oregon to review teacher work sample materials and talk to 
teacher candidates about their perceptions.  Based on these initial interactions, project task force 
groups began to develop their own “Renaissance Partnership” processes for teacher work 
samples, including candidate performance tasks (prompts) and scoring guides (rubrics) that best 
met the needs of Renaissance Partner project sites.  While Western Oregon had provided the 
basic theory and conceptual framework for teacher work samples, Renaissance Partnership 
members needed to develop both standards of performance for teaching processes they believed 



       The Power of Partnerships in Becoming Accountable     31 

were most important as well as instrumentation (teacher work sample prompts and rubrics) they 
“collectively owned” and understood. 

The first year of the project produced some rocky results.  Assessment coordinators met 
in St. Louis to set parameters of measurement and key indicators of performances for teacher 
work sample prompts and rubrics.  At times the debate over issues such as what constitutes 
evidence of P-12 learning, which teacher performances were most important, and the format of 
instrumentation became quite heated.  While a visitor to the discussions might have perceived 
chaos, reflecting back on those early meetings we are certain they were the essential interactions 
between project representatives from eleven sites that were needed to build a strong partnership. 

Assessment coordinators, teacher work sample coordinators, and mentoring coordinators 
from all ten project sites convened in St. Louis in January 2001 for a 3.5 day work session.  Sites 
that had piloted the first draft of the Renaissance Teacher Work Sample Model brought teacher 
candidate exhibits to score.  Most brought war stories of teacher candidate frustration with the 
work sample task and back-home faculty resistance to the idea of work samples.  Several 
coordinators came to St. Louis with stories of real successes and exhibits of outstanding 
candidate performances.  The stated purpose of the January work session was to review progress, 
revise the work sample prompt and rubric, and plan for the second semester of TWS 
implementation in spring of 2001.  The work session exemplified the concept of synergy.  The 
right people were in the right place at the right time and partners from ten institutions 
accomplished far more collectively than any delegation from each of the individual project sites 
could have done separately.  The failures and successes from the fall semester of 2000 were used 
as learning experiences.   

The teacher educators, arts and science faculty, and school practitioners who came to St. 
Louis in January of 2001 worked long and hard for more than three days and most said they left 
feeling professionally rewarded that progress had been made.  All left with a set of teacher work 
sample materials they had helped to develop and which were much improved and more likely to 
produce results with teacher candidates.  Their understanding of standards-based teaching and 
learning had grown, professional ownership of teacher work samples had increased, and 
confidence in the power of the partnership process was established. 

The January 2001 work session by project teacher educators, arts and science faculty, and 
school practitioners from the ten partner sites established the structure and work standard for the 
remaining four years of the Title II project.  Since that first 2001 event, 60 to 70 coordinators, 
faculty and school practitioners from partner sites in ten states have convened in St. Louis twice 
each year for three days of program development, sharing experiences, networking, and 
production of training and support materials.  These intense three-day work sessions held on a 
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of mid-January and June have been the driving force of 
partnership support that enabled this project to exceed its original goals and achieve the results 
that will be described later in this chapter.  Assessment, teacher work sample, and mentoring 
coordinators usually met on Wednesdays to report progress on the project objectives and work 
plan with respect to the development of performance data management and accountability 
systems, implementation of teacher work samples, and the establishment of mentoring programs.  
Key issues and concerns about project initiatives were brought to the semi-annual meetings and 
were addressed as a partnership effort.  On Thursdays and Fridays, site coordinators were joined 
by colleagues from back home to work in cross-institution teams on specific development tasks. 

In looking back at the project strategies that have enabled the partnership to achieve its 
goals and objectives, most project leaders would highly rank the value of our St. Louis work 



          R. Pankratz 
 

32 

sessions for a number of reasons.  First, the partnership work sessions served as our primary 
vehicle for communicating expectations of the project work plan.  Every work session began 
with an update of progress relative to the project goal and seven objectives, as well as the 
activities designed to achieve the objectives.  Every three-day session ended with back-home 
planning to see what was developed or learned at each local project site.  Second, the St. Louis 
events were a catalyst for communication and networking; professionals made connections to 
other people, ideas, and resources that could be followed up electronically back home.  In 
addition, work sessions were occasions where both successes and concerns about project 
implementation were shared and discussed.  The synergy of these events gave key project 
representatives a broader perspective that they were a valued part of teacher preparation and 
quality reform across the nation and that they were not alone in their quest to impact teaching 
and learning.  A third recognized benefit of the St. Louis work sessions was the opportunity to 
assemble the best minds and talents of professionals from eleven universities and partner schools 
at one location for three days to design and develop reform strategies.  The successes of the 
Renaissance Teacher Work Sample Standards, Prompt and Scoring Rubric document is a prime 
example of where sixty-six heads were better than six and the whole was more than the sum of 
its parts.  Coordinators from the eleven project sites have often commented about the role St. 
Louis work sessions have played in the development of the Renaissance Partnership. 

 
Accomplishments:  Working Together and Sharing Common Goals 
 

The Renaissance Partnership Project began with a central goal of accountability for 
teacher performance that results in P-12 student learning and six measurable project objectives.  
Of these, developing performance data management systems, implementing teacher work 
samples, and mentoring for high performance became the key reform strategies that directly 
impacted teacher candidate’s ability to facilitate learning of all students.  Business partnerships, 
networking, and research linking teacher performance to student learning were developed to 
support the three reform initiatives.  By the end of year one of the project, it became evident that 
performance accountability, teacher work samples, and focused mentoring would drive 
significant changes in teacher preparation courses and experiences.  Thus, a seventh objective 
(program revisions that improved the quality of graduates) was added.  Except for the 
development of business partnerships, significant progress was made on all project objectives. 

 
Performance Data Management and Accountability Systems 

All eleven project sites developed data management systems that enabled universities to 
collect, analyze, and report performance data on their graduates that were not in existence at the 
start of the project.  Five critical components were identified early in the project to measure 
progress toward accountability systems that met standards established by the National Council 
for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE).  Rubrics for each of the five components 
were developed to judge four levels of progress on each element.  Table 1 shows the number of 
institutions reaching defined levels of development of accountability systems for each of the five 
critical components. 

 
Table 1.  Number of Institutions in the Renaissance Partnership at Various Stages of 

Progress on July 1 of 2005  
 



       The Power of Partnerships in Becoming Accountable     33 

Critical Component 

Documented Stage of Development 

Beginning Developing 
At 

Standard 

Above 

Standard 

Unit-wide commitment to accountability 0 0 9 2   

Employed accountability system coordinator 1 1 2 7 

Process for on-going performance 

assessment development 
0 0 10 1 

Electronic data management system 1 1 7 2 

Process for reporting and using performance 

Data for program improvement 
0 3 6 2 

 

In comparison, when the project began in 1999, no institution had reached the “at standard” level 
on any of the five components and most were at the “beginning” level on all components. 
 
Implementation of Teacher Work Samples 
This component of the project has been the primary driving force for reform in teacher 
preparation.  Teacher work samples require student teachers to (a) design standards-based unit of 
instruction; (b) design formative pre- and post-classroom assessments that measure content 
standards; (c) implement the unit over a three to six week period in a real school setting; (d) 
analyze and report achievement progress of all students; and (e) evaluate their teaching and 
student learning.  Valid and reliable teaching tasks were developed early in the project along 
with scoring rubrics to judge teacher performance on each of the seven components of a teacher 
work sample.  The project employed four dimensions by Crocker (1997) to establish validity as a 
performance measure and the generalizability formula proposed by Shavelson and Webb (1991) 
to establish scorer reliability.  Table 2 shows the progress growth in use of teacher work samples 
with student teachers across the eleven sites over the duration of the project. 
 
Table 2  Number of valid teacher work samples produced by student teachers and scored for 
performance. 
 

Time Period Teacher Work Samples Produced and Scored 

Spring 2001 198 

Spring 2002 964 

Spring 2003 1,245 

Spring 2004 1,575 

Spring 2005 2,000 * 

*exact count not available 



          R. Pankratz 
 

34 

Performance standards for each of the seven components of the work sample were set at a high 
level.  When teacher work samples were first introduced, less than 50% of student teachers 
scored at the “proficient” level.  In the spring of 2004, all of the eleven institutions report more 
than 80% of student teachers achieving the proficient or above level of performance on teacher 
work samples. 
 
Team mentoring of Candidates by Teacher Educators, Arts and Science Faculty, and School 
Practitioners 
While the involvement of the three principal role groups has been achieved in this project, team 
mentoring models have been a challenge.  Interaction among arts & science faculty, school 
practitioners, and teacher educators is important and essential.  However, scheduling these 
collective interactions has been difficult but progress is being made through innovative 
strategies.  Achievements toward the mentoring objective include the following: 
 

• More than 150 arts & science faculty, 300 teacher educators, and 300 school 
practitioners across the project have been trained to mentor teacher candidates on 
developing teaching units that produce high levels of student achievement. 

• A manual for teacher mentors and a manual for teacher candidates have been 
developed primarily to assist teacher candidates in producing high performance 
teacher work samples. 

• Two project-wide studies of mentoring successes and challenges have been conducted 
and shared across sites to guide mentoring programs. 

• Mentoring models (structures and processes) used at sites have been described, 
documented and shared with other partnership members. 
 

Program and Course Revisions Resulting from Implementing Teacher Work Samples 
Course revisions have been a by-product of introducing teacher work samples.  Several of the 
work sample processes (i.e., use of context to design instruction, development of assessment 
plans, analysis of student learning and reflection on teaching and learning) have not been given 
much attention in traditional teacher preparation programs.  Consequently, both teacher 
candidates and university faculty recognized the need to strengthen these important processes 
and have made additions and modifications to the curriculum. 
 

• More than one hundred pedagogy and fifty content courses that prepare teachers 
have been modified or revised to address expectations in teacher work samples, 
especially with respect to designing learning goals aligned with content standards and 
developing assessment tools to measure student learning. 
• A study of eighty-six representative faculty across the eleven partnership sites 
relative to actual course changes was conducted and published in 2003 to show how 
course revisions relate to the seven processes of teacher performance. 
 

The 86 faculty selected for the study identified 122 major changes, 229 significant changes and 
162 minor changes in courses and program preparation experiences resulting from the teacher 
work sample initiative.  In June of 2004, university coordinators from across the partnership 



       The Power of Partnerships in Becoming Accountable     35 

reported a collective total of 189 identified courses in teacher preparation programs revised to 
address one or more teaching processes introduced and assessed by the teacher work samples.   
 
Networking of People, Ideas, and Resources 
Network and communication across eleven project sites has been a prime vehicle for innovation 
and change in this project.  Two- and three-day work sessions were conducted twice each year 
for between fifty and seventy representative teacher educators, arts and science faculty, and 
school practitioners to (1) design and develop materials, (2) train faculty in the use and scoring 
of teacher work samples, and (3) share implementation successes and concerns. 
Table 3 shows the primary developmental activity for each of nine networking events between 
June 2000 and June 2004. 
 

Table 3. Networking Activity Events that Supported Renaissance Partnership Initiatives 

Date Primary Activity of Work Session 

June 2000 Initial training for teacher work samples (TWS) 

January 2001 Revision of TWS Prompt and Rubric 

June 2001 Benchmarking and scoring, revision of prompt and rubric 

January 2002 Advanced scoring training, inter-rater reliability check  

June 2002 Sharing successes and problems, advance training, materials development 

January 2003 Sharing successes and problems, assessment tools manual development, 

mentoring manual development 

June 2003 Sharing successes and concerns, credibility manual development, revision of 

mentoring manual 

January 2004 Sharing successes and concerns, revision of assessment tools manual, 

identification of twenty-four TWS exemplars 

June 2004 Reporting and celebrating of project achievements, forward action planning 

(institutionalization) 

 

A second major vehicle for networking has been the project web site http://fp.uni.edu/itq.  This 
web site has provided project information, descriptions of project activities and project resources 
to thousands of project participants and non-project educators since the start-up of the 
Renaissance Partnership.  Teacher work sample prompts, rubrics, and exemplars for various 
disciplines, as well as training manuals and PowerPoint presentations, are available for 
downloading free of charge from the web site. 
 
Research and Dissemination 
During the first three years of the project, formative data was collected on program practices 
related to management data bases, teacher work samples, and mentoring teams to guide the 



          R. Pankratz 
 

36 

development of these initiatives.  Also, data on candidate performance was collected to provide a 
baseline for evaluating the effects of program initiatives. 
Over the past two years, studies have been completed at Idaho State University, Longwood 
University, Western Kentucky University, and Emporia State University, linking teacher work 
sample performance to other factors, including course grades and perceptions of candidates 
about their instruction.  Also, over the past year studies have been completed that measure the 
validity and scorer reliability of the Renaissance teacher work sample performance instrument.  
These studies are published in a chapter of the Association of Teacher Educator’s yearbook in 
press (Denner, Pankratz, Norman & Newsome, 2003). 
In addition to the above research efforts, project personnel have been extremely active in 
dissemination activities.  From January 2003 to July 2004, more than eighty formal presentations 
were delivered to state, regional, national, and international audiences based on project initiatives 
and the experiences with and results of these initiatives.  Eighteen articles related directly to 
project initiatives have been submitted to professional publications.  A number of these 
presentations have been placed on the project web site and are available to view or download. 
 
The Results of a Third Party Evaluation of the Renaissance Partnership Project 
In the fall of 2002, the Renaissance Partnership contracted with Appalachia Education 
Laboratory (AEL) of Charleston, West Virginia, to conduct an independent evaluation of the 
eleven-site Title II Project.  AEL conducted the evaluation over a one-year period from August 
of 2001 to August of 2002 (Cowley, Finch & Meehan, 2003).  A multi-method research 
approach suggested by Brewer and Hunter (1989) was employed to corroborate data from 
different stakeholders to address evaluation questions.  Data sources included in-depth interviews 
with presidents, provosts, and deans of the eleven universities as well as completed surveys from 
institution coordinators, assessment coordinators, teacher work sample coordinators, institution 
faculty, project school practitioners, and student teachers who completed teacher work samples. 
At the end of the fourth year of the project, AEL reported the following findings: 
 

• The teacher work sample project objective was “clearly the most advanced and the 
mentoring objective met to a high degree.”  To some extent, the project objectives for 
accountability systems, course revisions, and networking have been achieved 
showing marked differences across institutions.  The least progress was found with 
respect to business partnerships and research linking teacher performance to P-12 
student learning.   

• The project is clearly aimed toward the goals and expectations of the Title II Teacher 
Quality Enhancement Partnership Program.  Some activities seem to have more 
widespread support across institutions and so more time is being spent in these areas.  

• Across program objectives there is a strong leadership component, faculty 
commitment and buy-in and collaboration both within and across institutions.  For 
teacher work samples, respondents note that it is of professional interest, it is not too 
expensive to implement, and it improves service delivery.  As a result, faculty are 
more interested and willing to complete activities pertaining to this objective.   

• The ability to learn from each other, problem solve and discuss how to adapt or adopt 
systems or methods was seen as one of the major strengths of this project.   

• Barriers to progress most often identified were resistance to change, faculty turnover, 
and the lack of resources for employing additional staff to implement project 



       The Power of Partnerships in Becoming Accountable     37 

initiatives.  Also, lack of technical support and faculty time to develop the various 
components of a performance data accountability system was often cited as the chief 
impediment to progress toward this objective.  
 

Key recommendations for greater effectiveness and project productivity based on the findings of 
AEL included  (a) achieve full implementation of teacher work samples, (b) expand mentoring 
programs for higher performance, (c) initiate and conduct more research studies that link teacher 
performance to student achievement, (d) accelerate progress on data management systems, (e) 
fully integrate project initiatives into each university’s culture, and (f) seek continued funding for 
key initiatives and research.   
While the value of teacher work samples as a tool for teacher preparation, performance, and 
assessment was cited by the AEL evaluators as a most important outcome of this project, the 
experiences of partnering and networking were viewed by most project participants interviewed 
and surveyed as the most helpful and effective strategies for developing, implementing, and 
institutionalizing teacher quality reform initiatives (Cowley, et al., 2003) 
In the fall of 2004, two years after the first third party evaluation, AEL was contracted for an in-
depth study of the implementation of accountability systems and teacher work samples at four 
partnership universities (Cowley, et al., 2003).  The purpose of this second study was to  
determine (a) the extent of institutionalization of these two key reform initiatives in four more 
successful project sites and (b) factors that contributed to adoption and institutionalization of 
performance accountability systems. 
Six institutions were asked to submit project implementation data and four were selected based 
on criteria of comprehensiveness, organization, and available information on the two target 
reform initiatives.  Emporia State, Longwood University (VA), University of Northern Iowa, and 
Western Kentucky University were selected as the four study sites. 
Study protocols were developed, two-day site visits were made to each of the four universities, 
and 209 people were interviewed in 65 individual and group sessions.  These included 18 
university and project administrators, 79 faculty members, 85 teacher candidates and recent 
graduates, and 27 cooperating K-12 school practitioners.  Electronic data materials, training 
protocols, implementation data, and records of development efforts were collected. 
From the data collected, the researchers concluded that “The concept of teacher work samples as 
both a process and product has become firmly embedded in the culture of each of the four 
universities.”  The completion of teacher work samples as measures of teaching performance 
were required for all candidates at three universities, and it would become mandatory at the 
fourth institution in the fall of 2005.  Key factors that researchers found contributed most to the 
institutionalization of teacher work samples were 
 

• Strong administrative commitment and support that backed the efforts of individuals 
involved in development and implementation; 

• The “right” individuals were identified that had both the ability and respect to 
promote and lead a new initiative; 

• Adequate training in the use of work samples for all stakeholders; 
• Involvement of university councils and decision making bodies that approved policies 

that institutionalized teacher work samples; and 
• Connecting the work sample initiative with other reform efforts (i.e., NCATE 

standards, state accountability demands, NCLB). 



          R. Pankratz 
 

38 

• Contributing factors to the development and institutionalization of accountability 
systems also were identified 

• External “drivers”, such as NCATE standards, state accountability mandates, and K-
12 data-based instructional improvement and decision making; 

• Strong leadership and support for performance accountability systems – i.e., the 
employment of half-time assessment coordinators to lead and coordinate development 
efforts; and 

• External resources of the Title II grant for start up and development costs, as well as 
the sharing of expertise and technical information on accountability systems by 
institutions “leading the pack.” 

• In addition, AEL researchers concluded that based on the data and experience at the 
four universities visited that both accountability systems and teacher work samples 
had contributed to improving teacher quality through four processes: 

• Teacher work samples and accountability systems shifted the teacher preparation 
focus from textbook-driven instruction which focuses on “material coverage” to data-
driven instruction to meet state and local content standards; 

• Teacher work samples helped teacher educators become more accountable for their 
own performance through standards-based teaching, learning, and assessments; 

• Teacher work samples prompted all universities to modify their preparation 
curriculum because of observed needs of candidates in areas, such as assessment and 
reflective writing; and 

• Both teacher work samples and accountability systems have increased conversations 
and cooperation across departments within colleges of education and across to 
colleges of arts and sciences (Cowley, Voelkel & Finch, 2005). 

 
A Project Director’s Analysis, Reflection, and Conclusion 

As a thirty-five year veteran of writing proposals for federally-funded projects and 
directing development programs in teacher preparation, I have always tended to promise more 
than I could deliver and expect more than can reasonably be achieved over the life of a project.  
However, I can truthfully say that with the Renaissance Partnership for Improving Teacher 
Quality, we will come nearer achieving and, in some cases, exceeding the objectives of any 
project I have directed.  I attribute the higher level of success in this project to five key factors.   
 
Use of Sound Concepts and Strategies 

The relentless focus on P-12 student learning of content; the seven teaching processes 
that comprise the teacher work sample; directed mentoring for higher performance, partnering 
between teacher educators, arts and science faculty; and school practitioners and accountability 
for performance all represent concepts and processes that have a strong conceptual base and are 
supported by standards-based teaching and learning across the nation.  In other words, the project 
was designed to advance teacher quality initiatives that had a high probability of working.  
However, in the case of teacher work samples, the strategy has certainly exceeded all 
expectations. 
 
Development of User-friendly Materials 

The development, revision, and wide distribution of the Renaissance Teacher Work 
Sample Standards, Prompt and Rubric document and the Renaissance Teacher Work Sample 



       The Power of Partnerships in Becoming Accountable     39 

Scoring Guide has been key to communicating the seven teaching processes to teacher 
candidates, teacher educators, arts and science faculty, and school practitioners.   All are on the 
project website for anyone to download along with about thirty candidate-produced teacher work 
samples.  This effort was based on previous research on adoption of educational initiatives and I 
believe the wide distribution of materials served as a primary factor in the growing use of teacher 
work samples (Hall et al, 1973). 

 
Availability of Outstanding Professional Talent 

The teacher educators, arts and science faculty, and school practitioners who were leaders 
at each of the eleven project sites (especially those sent to the work sessions in St. Louis), were 
the most talented, hardworking, and professional group I have had the privilege of working with 
in my educational career.  They truly were the top performers from each project site, and 
working together became a powerful force for development and implementation of project 
initiatives. 

 
A History of Collaboration among Renaissance Group Institutions 

The ten years of collaboration and communication and interaction between presidents, 
provosts, and deans prior to the startup of this project gave the Renaissance Partnership for 
Improving Teacher Quality a real advantage over any partnership formed in 1999.  Also, the fact 
that I, as director, had worked with most of the deans and some of the provosts of the eleven 
institutions prior to the Title II project aided our efforts to collaborate as did the coincidence that 
Western’s provost was the former education dean at California State, Fresno and served on the 
Renaissance Group board of directors. 
 
Learning from Past Experience 

As the director of this project, I admit that the saying “you learn from past experience” 
truly captured what we experienced in the Renaissance Partnership.  Since the late 1960s, I have 
had the opportunity to direct Head Start training projects, Teacher Corps projects, Career Ladder 
projects, school reform projects, and research.  Consequently, I had the opportunity to make a lot 
of mistakes and to learn from some.  My professional contribution to this project as its director 
had a lot to do with the rich set of experiences that have come my way and the competent 
mentors whom I was privileged to interact with over the past thirty-five years.   
 
A Concluding Comment 

Over the past four years I have been privileged to be part of a community of learners that 
I believe is making a difference in how teachers are prepared and mentored.  Also, it has been 
my good fortune to have had the support of the U. S. Department of Education, eleven 
universities, and their partner schools to pursue a passion to improve learning for all children.  
The documented accomplishments of this project and reports from hundreds of professionals 
who are using ideas and resources developed by the Renaissance Partnership certainly are 
gratifying.  The eleven universities in ten states along with their partner schools have been a 
powerful force for the improvement of teacher quality.  By working together, we have been able 
to achieve far more than what each of the sites could have produced alone.  However, 
achievement of the primary goal of the Renaissance Partnership – to show accountability for the 
impact of teacher graduates on the students they teach – is just beginning to surface.  While we 
have some evidence that teacher graduates have the skills and abilities to produce learning, years 



          R. Pankratz 
 

40 

of teaching and learning, data collection, and analysis will be required to fully realize the fruits 
of our efforts in this project.  Toward that goal we must remain diligent. 
  



       The Power of Partnerships in Becoming Accountable     41 

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