This volume provides a synthesis of protocols, and strategies to support assessment leaders in effectively using data for educator preparation program improvement. Data-informed decision-making has become increasingly important in quality assurance for both internal and external audiences, yet there are scant resources to guide those charged with managing the development and application of data for monitoring and improving the quality of their programs. Until this work, there has been little explication of how assessment directors working in educator preparation should conceptualize, organize, and implement best practices in data collection, analysis, interpretation, and sharing. As state and national expectations for evidence of quality are growing, it is essential to chronicle the collective wisdom of assessment leaders in education preparation in one manuscript. For both novice and experienced assessment directors, this volume offers insightful perspectives and excellent strategies to facilitate the journey from complying with external expectations to strategically using data and evidence to achieve goals, leveraging assessment to achieve socially just outcomes, involving multiple voices and interpreters, and opening windows to further inquiry. The editors have gathered experts in all phases of the assessment process and organized their work in an easy-to-follow manner. This work provides both conceptual underpinnings of educator preparation quality assurance as well as practical lessons learned that will support the transformation of an assessment professional into an assessment leader. ENSORSEMENTS "Finally, a book that shows what we can learn from accreditation, collectively. The strength of the volume lies in the concrete examples of evaluation and improvement that are woven throughout the chapters. Effectively Using Data for Educator Preparation Improvement is a welcome addition to the small but growing body of useful literature related to quality assurance work in the field." Mark LaCelle-Peterson, Ed.D. President and CEO Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation "The volume Effectively Using Data for Educator Preparation Program Improvement provides many examples of how providers collect data and evidence to establish or enhance quality assurance. The publication will be of value to any provider seeking to enhance quality and improve their programs. The publication is particularly timely given many state efforts to increase enrollments and diversity which have resulted in lowered standards. Having measures and evidence of quality provide a necessary counter balance to these efforts." Christopher Koch, Ed.D. President Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation "Effectively Using Data for Educator Preparation Program Improvement assists educators in data-informed research and practice to improve programs, diversify the profession, and ensure that our teacher candidates are “profession-ready.” Written predominantly for the assessment director—or leaders as the editors posit, this volume goes beyond that goal to add a valuable resource for all of us who care about the field of educator preparation. I highly recommend this book to the field as we work together to elevate the teaching profession." Lynn M. Gangone, Ed.D. President & CEO American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education

This book offers concrete examples of how data can be used by faculty, staff, and program leaders to improve their collective work as teacher educators. Strong external accountability mandates often lead to tensions that undermine local morale and motivation. This volume focuses on the practical work of navigating these tensions so that valuable programmatic change can happen. It describes policies and practices drawn from a study of “high data use” teacher education programs from around the country that have strategically engaged the challenges of learning to use data for program improvement. Readers will see how the data-use work carried out in these programs strengthened local program identity and coherence. Representing a collaborative effort between researchers and practitioners, this volume presents lessons learned to assist teacher educators who are engaged daily with the challenges of making data useful and used in their programs. Book Features: Examples of how tensions between external mandates for accountability and program improvement can be navigated in ways that are grounded in local program values.Detailed case study portraits of individual programs that offer a full and action-oriented sense of data use work.Strategies for ensuring that data systems are responsive to multiple stakeholders, such as faculty, administrators, students, and policymakers.A diversity of perspectives and experiences from small liberal arts colleges, large teacher preparation institutions, and research-intensive universities.

This book addresses the issue of data use in educator preparation programs towards continuous programmatic improvement. With an aim to increase the rigor in both research and practice in educational administration and teacher education, this volume will analyze the longstanding quality concerns about teacher and leadership preparation and standards for programs and educators, as well as controversies concerning national accreditation and federal efforts to mandate program reporting data. By exploring the policies and practices that influence departments of education, this volume examines the increasing pressures to improve institutional functioning, within a complex system of university, state, and national structures and organizations.

Using Data for Continuous Improvement in Educator Preparation provides case studies that illuminate and contextualize the ways in which educator preparation programs determine the data they need to improve, collect data, analyze data, share data with stakeholders, and close the loop by making focused improvements based on the data. Educator preparation programs operate in a wide range of contexts that have different requirements (e.g., state-mandated measures), different affordances, and different needs. This text focuses on not only the stories of how data is collected, analyzed, and used for improvement, but also on how stakeholders are impacted by the continuous improvement process. In the editors’ work with accreditation and educator preparation program evaluation, they noticed a variety of approaches to collecting, analyzing, and using data for program improvement. Often this intense work with data goes unnoticed and unappreciated because it is done in the service of accreditation that, once completed, does not reach an audience outside of the institution and the accreditation agency. Using Data for Continuous Improvement in Educator Preparation solves this problem by shedding light on this important work. This volume inaugurates the AAQEP Program Evaluation in Education Series. Perfect for courses such as: Methods of Program Evaluation; Teacher Education; Improvement Science

For educator preparation programs (EPPs) to produce effective teachers, they must engage in a process of continuous improvement using timely, high-quality information about the performance of their respective graduates in the classroom as measured by student outcomes. While states have the capacity to provide this information through their comprehensive and secure longitudinal data systems, this critical feedback loop between states and EPPs often does not exist. As of 2014, only 22 states reported sharing feedback annually with in-state EPPs. Therefore, EPPs in most states lack the information needed to understand outcomes and improve program practice, and no EPPs are able to collect information on graduates who are employed out of state. Three barriers prevent effective EPP use of state data for continuous improvement: (1) The data-use culture focuses on compliance rather than continuous improvement; (2) States are not sharing the right data with EPPs; and (3) EPPs lack the capacity and culture necessary to use data to improve their practice. Despite the policy challenges, there are bright spots in this work. Over the last three years, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has implemented a number of policies meant to encourage continuous improvement in EPPs and provide targeted technical support. These policies along with additional recommendations for collaboration between state departments of education and EPPs are described in this report.

Measure, Use, Improve! Data Use in Out-of-School Time shares the experience and wisdom from a broad cross-section of out-of-school time professionals, ranging from internal evaluators, to funders, to researchers, to policy advocates. Key themes of the volume include building support for learning and evaluation within out-of-school time programs, creating and sustaining continuous quality improvement efforts, authentically engaging young people and caregivers in evaluation, and securing funder support for learning and evaluation. This volume will be particularly useful to leadership-level staff in out-of-school time organizations that are thinking about deepening their own learning and evaluation systems, yet aren’t sure where to start. Authors share conceptual frameworks that have helped inform their thinking, walk through practical examples of how they use data in out-of-school time, and offer advice to colleagues.

Performance-based assessments can provide an adequate and more direct evaluation of teaching ability. As performance-based assessments become more prevalent in institutions across the United States, there is an opportunity to begin more closely analyzing the impact of standardized performance assessments and the relationship to variables such as success entering the workforce, program re-visioning for participating institutions, and the perceptions and efficacy of teacher candidates themselves. Performance-Based Assessment in 21st Century Teacher Education is a collection of innovative research that explores meaningful and engaging performance-based assessments and its applications and addresses larger issues of assessment including the importance of a balanced approach of assessing knowledge and skills. The book also offers tangible structures for making strong connections between theory and practice and offers advice on how these assessments are utilized as data sources related to preservice teacher performance. While highlighting topics including faculty engagement, online programs, and curriculum mapping, this book is ideally designed for educators, administrators, principals, school boards, professionals, researchers, faculty, and students.