Chapter 2: Learning to Teach: Optimizing Coursework and Fieldwork Requirements in Traditional Teacher Preparation

In an era of educational accountability, and largely in response to Race to the Top competitive grants launched by the United States Department of Education in 2009, more and more state agencies and researchers are evaluating teacher preparation programs (TPPs) based on graduates’ contribution to raising student achievement (value-added) and finding differences among programs on this measure of teacher effectiveness (Goldhaber, Liddle, & Theobald, 2013; Henry, Patterson, Campbell, & Yi, 2013; Imig & Imig, 2008; Koedel, Parsons, Podgurksy, & Ehlert, 2015; Noell, Porter, Pratt, & Dahir, 2008; Tennessee Higher Education Commission, 2012), although reanalysis of these data suggest these differences may be negligible (von Hippel & Bellows, 2018). New requirements presented by the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) also include program impact on student learning as one of five standards for accreditation (CAEP, 2013). There are several mechanisms through which TPPs could affect teacher quality and thereby affect student achievement, including through selection of teacher candidates, training of teacher candidates, or some combination of both (Ballou & Podgursky, 1998; Levine, 2006).