Evaluating Teacher Education Graduates and Programs.

Overview & Synopsis

Schools, colleges, and departments of education are becoming increasingly accountable for the training and evaluation of competent teachers, and are developing new ways to evaluate their graduates and their programs. The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) has identified three areas for evaluating teacher education graduates: competency, entry, and effectiveness. Data for evaluation of teacher education graduates could be obtained from four categories: (1) career line data; (2) direct classroom observation; (3) pupil, peer, and supervisory evaluations; and (4) standardized measures. Each of these categories relates to an NCATE evaluation standard. At present, standardized measures seem the most efficient and reliable evaluative data available to teacher educators for determining the quality of their graduates and their teacher education programs. These standardized measures take the form of competency examinations (before certification) and student achievement measures (after entry into the profession). Other measures of teacher performance include classroom observation and pupil, peer, and supervisory evaluations. More refined measures need to be developed to be used as admission standards to schools of education. (JM)