Projects Under Way in 2 States to Judge Teacher Prep

As calls to improve the quality of teacher education programs nationwide intensify, two statewide projects are scrutinizing their own institutions of higher education to see what they are doing right, or wrong, in preparing new teachers.

Louisiana and Ohio are using different models to measure the effectiveness of new teachers who graduate from the states’ preparation programs. While the Louisiana project primarily uses several years of student data to track teacher effectiveness, the Ohio model includes extensive surveys of new teachers responding to their first few years in the classroom.

Some institutions of higher education such as California State University and the University of Texas are also...