NCTQ

Use of Data to Track Completers' Effectiveness


One of the National Council on Teacher Quality's state-level reform findings was that the state should accelerate its plans to develop data systems that can be used to show evidence of teacher effectiveness. Importantly, this data system will track individual teacher preparation program completers' outcomes. This page provides information on two current measures of data use, as well as four areas that the state could bolster in the future.

Current Measures

  • Longitudinal Data System: This will track Illinois students as they move from Pre-K to higher education and beyond.
  • Teacher Data Warehouse: Many of the state's public teacher preparation programs utilize this data storage system, which is located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Institutions submit data and utilize it to track items like the correlation between student teaching placement experiences and eventual career choices, as well as graduate career milestones, retention rates, and employer satisfaction. (For more information on the Teacher Data Warehouse's scope and capabilities, reference this document.)
  • Performance Evaluation Advisory Council: A new addition to ISBE rules requires teacher preparation programs to summarize data about their completers' effectiveness. The Performance Evaluation Advisory Council has been commissioned to aid this process by developing a new set of performance evaluations for Illinois teachers and principals. It aims to have districts implement a new teacher evaluation plan by September 1st, 2012.

Future Directions

  • Student Achievement and Student Growth: Both Florida and Louisiana have incorporated "value-added" methodology into their data systems. This allows states to observe the gains that individual teachers create over a year's time, with Louisiana using information on these gains to evaluate its teacher preparation programs. Importantly, neither of these states has made value-added data the central or dominant piece of determining their teachers' quality.
  • Career-Related Outcomes and Milestones: Completers' outcomes and career paths are important data points for institutions. More of the state's teacher preparation programs could take advantage of the existing Teacher Data Warehouse and the career-related data that it offers.