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How to improve data reporting systems for Educator Preparation programs

N.C. Legislative Building

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The General Assembly’s Program Evaluation Division (PED) laid out for lawmakers Monday how educator preparation programs can better report data, finding that current reporting is difficult to understand, lacks some important data, and can unfairly penalize some programs.

Full Report

The division report had three findings and four suggestions for improvement. 

In addition to finding that current reports are difficult to understand, division staffers noted that reports lacked uniformity and “helpful data indicators.” 

The other two findings were that legislation on EPP accountability passed in 2017 has created some challenges for reporting, and that the state has the organizations in place to come up with a “performance-based, weighted reporting model.” 

PED recommended four steps to lawmakers:

1. “Amend state law for EPP accountability by adding an employment performance standard”

  • PED found that under current state law, there is no standard relating to employment, unlike other states. Things like graduate licensure rates, employment rates, and retention four years after graduation aren’t required to be reported. The first recommendation suggests that this kind of data be included in reports.

2. “Direct the State Board to adopt rules to establish a small group exception for disaggregated demographic data”

  • PED is trying to address a sanctioning process that is now part of state law. Under this law, programs can be “sanctioned” if certain demographic groups perform poorly. PED found, however, that this could unfairly punish programs that have unusually low numbers of students in certain demographic groups. Recommendation two would include an exception for programs with small demographic groups. 

3. “Direct UNC BOG, in consultation with the State Board and the Standards Commission, to develop a plan for sharing data with the new UNC Educator Quality Dashboard”

4. “Direct the State Board, DPI, and the Standards Commission to transform the current required reporting efforts into a streamlined, weighted, performance-based model”

PED came up with a sample model for fixing some of the issues staffers found, which you can find in the presentation below. 

Presentation