Evaluating the Tennessee Higher Education Commission's Report Card on the value-added estimates of teacher preparation programs

Authors

  • Charisse Gulosino University of Memphis

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.26.2604

Keywords:

Teacher Preparation Program, Teacher Effectiveness, Value-Added Models

Abstract

Evaluations of teacher preparation programs (TPPs) based in part on the performance of program completers have emerged as an education reform strategy in several states and have become central features of the Race to the Top (RTTT) grant competition. The objective of this policy review is to examine how the state of Tennessee measured and reported the extent to which teacher preparation programs (TPPs) explain the variation of the test score gains for public school students taught by program graduates. This review breaks down the findings by institution and certification pathway, comparing statistically significant outcomes at the state level produced by teachers from each TPP. An analysis of Tennessee's report card reveals considerable variation in the value-added estimates of beginning teachers, depending on the institution where they were trained.  These results, however, should be interpreted with caution. This review offers several technical considerations associated with the interpretation of Tennessee's report card on the effectiveness of TPPs and explains how these considerations may affect the interpretation of the findings.

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Author Biography

Charisse Gulosino, University of Memphis

Charisse Gulosino, an Assistant Professor in the Leadership and Policy Studies Program at the University of Memphis, received her doctorate in education from Columbia University. Charisse was a Postdoctoral Research Associate and a faculty member of the Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions at Brown University. She has also served as a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Education Policy and Social Analysis (EPSA) at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research focuses on the evaluation of educational policies and programs with a specific interest in school choice that enhance education access, equity, efficiency and results-based accountability. She has applied geospatial, financial and organizational behavior analyses to the study of charter schools in metropolitan education markets. She also explores the achievement levels and technical efficiency of traditional public schools facing charter school competition. Her scholarly articles have appeared in Education Economics, American Journal of Education, and Education Policy Analysis Archives. Charisse has served (2006-2010) as chair and program chair of the American Educational Research Association's SIG for Charter School Research and Evaluation. She has worked with the Network of Independent Charter Schools Project (funded by the U.S. Department of Education) to blog about charter school research to establish the Network as a two-way communication resource for charter school researchers and practitioners. She hopes to expand her work in the field of educational policy to include other market-based social and educational reforms. An important theme that has surfaced in her work is whether low resource communities are equipped to operate local school organizations independently from local district mechanisms. A more recent track in her research interest is to identify the existing resources, and investigate how schools are tapping these resources, including partnerships with venture philanthropies, businesses, and community organizations.

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Published

2018-03-12

How to Cite

Gulosino, C. (2018). Evaluating the Tennessee Higher Education Commission’s Report Card on the value-added estimates of teacher preparation programs. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 26, 33. https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.26.2604

Issue

Vol. 26 (2018)

Section

Navigating the Contested Terrain of Teacher Education Policy and Practice