At this time, Connecticut legislation explicitly prohibits the linking of any state student-testing database with state educator databases, thereby precluding the use of value-added methodologies for the evaluation of teacher performance based on student achievement. However, given CAEP standard requirements (formally adopted by the State Board of Education in December 2016) and federal Title II requirements regarding measurements of student effectiveness, we continue to work with the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) to develop alternative reliable and valid methodologies for measuring our program impact on P-12 student growth.
In the absence of state data, our EPP has been studying the impact of our completers on P-12 learning and development through other means.
1. Survey of Completers:
We measure the satisfaction of our completers through a survey of 17 items. These 17 items focus on the four InTASC subscales, including content, learner and learning, instructional practice, and professional responsibility. It is administered in the summer, every other odd year.
Based on this survey, we can determine that our EPP has prepared our completers strongly in their understanding of the content area, their abilities to make content meaningful, engaging students in their content, understanding how students develop, using a variety of instructional strategies, planning instruction, using assessment data to inform instruction, using data to monitor student growth, integrating technology, collaborating with professionals and community members, and understanding and following ethics and codes of professional conduct (all with a mean score above 3.5).
Areas that our completers felt less prepared include teaching students with disabilities (mean of 3.36 with a standard deviation of .95), teaching English learners (mean of 3.32 with a standard deviation of .95) and effective classroom management (mean of 2.77 with a standard deviation of 1.19). Results from the Survey of Completers are woven into ongoing program improvements.
Evidence:
2. Survey of Employers:Another measure of our completers is through a survey of the employers of our completers. These surveys are deployed every two years on the even years.
Multiple items across the 2024 employer survey provide data on our completers' teaching effectiveness. Employers strongly rated our completers' knowledge of their subject area and their abilities to plan and organize lesson and activities effectively (each with an average mean score above 3.7 our of 5). Employers rated our completers' abilities to work with a culturally diverse classroom and to develop appropriate assessment practices as above average (each with a mean score above 3.3 out of 5). One score that was rated slightly lower (mean score of 3.12 out of 5) was skill in classroom management. These results not only corroborate the results from our student completers' survey but underline our completers' (and by attribution, our programs') strengths and areas for ongoing improvement.
Evidence:
