The SBEC met on July 20 to hold a work session for their July 21 meeting. A video archive can be found here and the agenda can be found here.
This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight the various topics taken up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the discussions but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer.
Item 3: Discussion of Teacher Preparation and Stakeholder Panel
TEA Staff
- Shows videos of three teachers talking about the positive impact of their time in residency
- SBEC Members – Teacher Residency Pathway enables teachers to start off on the right foot in their first year
- Shows a slide with the structure and sequence of the teacher class of certificate pathway and asks members what they notice
- Brescia – Teacher of record and alternative prep is advanced in process earlier
- Rodriguez – Residency route doesn’t lead to standard teacher certificate
- we wanted to distinguish teachers on that route
- SBEC Member – In residency, it allows teachers to be supported and see the whole school year
- Oeser – Traditional prep and residency routes look similar, we need to determine if they are different enough for different certificates
- There are critical differences
- Teacher residency is a full year of clinical training with experienced mentor teacher
- Displays slide showing “Evidence-Based Quality Preparation Components for a Teacher Residency”
- Residency is distinct because it is a year-long program with feedback
- Take 5 minutes to look over components and determine what makes this pathway distinct
- SBEC Member – There are alternative programs that do residency models, why can’t they be the same certification?
- Programs in the state have been implementing residency and going above requirements. Alternative programs do clinical teaching instead of internship that we think of for ACP pathway
- SBEC Member – They wouldn’t need the alternative certificate?
- Correct, in ACP programs where teachers go through residency, they never earn intern certificate
- This pathway is a third opportunity
- SBEC Member – We have traditional and alternative programs going above and beyond, and they want this extra effort to be acknowledged
- SBEC Member – Districts could start teachers at higher salary knowing they came from residency
- SBEC Member – Evaluation of teacher readiness and performance gates stuck out to me as a big difference for the residency pathway
- SBEC Member – Governance component stuck out to me. Are we going to distinguish goals and roles in advisory committee? Aligned content pedagogy exam, is that when we talked about portfolio based and no PPR, how do we distinguish that? Important to me that host teacher has much clearer picture of performance/growth. There could be a stipend to support residency
- SBEC Member – Increase in responsibility for mentor. What if we can’t find a qualified mentor?
- SBEC Member – I liked seeing multiple pathways and options for teachers. We can look at residency pathway to improve the others
- TEA Staff – Discusses differences for residency pathway
- It allows teachers to be in the action and get hands-on learning
- Shared governance and coordination
- Gathering of and use of the right data that informs differentiated candidate support
- Quality of teacher resident coaching practices. Host teacher has clear role in training resident
- Preview for Item 17: following April board meeting, reengaged district leaders; highlighted instructional settings, importance of documentation of shared agreement, field supervisors required meetings with campus administration, creating more flexibility
- Feedback emphasized multiple measures to ensure program quality like performance gates
- Field supported set of performance standards
Panel Introductions
Sarah Delano, Dallas College
- New bachelor’s degree program for education, students do residency in final year of program
- Program is set up so any student can go to Dallas College for free
Dr. Christopher Goodson, Richardson ISD
- Students are very economically disadvantaged
Dr. Clifton Tanabe, University of Texas El Paso
- Residents are evaluated throughout the year
- Pilot of resident program in 2019
- Residents are more confident than those on traditional route
- Created a match day where college students figured out where they were going to be a resident
Jina Eksaengsri, Socorro ISD
- Follow student teaching model
Dr. Joshua Jones, Tarleton State University
- We cater to individual districts based on their needs
- After pilot year, we determined residency was the way to go
Superintendent Wes Corzine, Huckabay ISD
- Residency may be answer for teacher shortage
Dr. Christy Reed, Tarleton State University
- Mutually beneficial partnerships with districts
Dr. Stacey Edmondson, Sam Houston State University
- Similar program as the other universities
- Almost 400 teacher residents
- Big part for us was connecting course work with residency
Dr. Helen Berg and Dr. Abbie Strunc, Sam Houston State University
Marlene Garcia, Klein ISD
- Residents on 17 campuses
- What motivated your EPP to take this step, what were some shifts that were made going to residency, and what have been notable outcomes from the residency program?
- Jones – Needed to implement residency program
- Jones – Needed to change course work and figure out what course work students can do during residency
- Jones – Students needed certification testing earlier
- Jones – Implemented site coordinator leader
- Jones – Residency requires deep partnership, so we partner with less districts now
- Reed – We poll our teacher residents to learn what would help them during residency
- Corzine – We wanted to help more so we reached out to Tarleton
- Delano – Research shows educators look like third year teachers coming out of residency
- Delano – Critical that residency is paid, some college students have kids and need to be paid
- Delano – Full time faculty members at Dallas college teach and observe students
- Goodson – Dallas College partnership was different because of the timing during COVID, we could pay teachers while they were still in college, more retention and less turnover
- Goodson – Teacher residency allows teachers to experience the whole process
- Tanabe, can you give us a look inside a teacher resident’s year in residency, what it looks like to gradually increase responsibility for a candidate in the classroom, what have been the benefits of implementing the residency model?
- Tanabe – Uniqueness here is rigorous coaching and experience on the job
- Tanabe – Teacher residents can teach on Fridays if host teacher is gone
- Tanabe – Gradual release where residents performing well can release earlier
- Tanabe – We do benchmarks for residents
- Eksaengsri – Benefits for LEA are high quality experiences for residents
- Eksaengsri – Residents outperforming non-residents
- Eksaengsri – Follow student teaching model so residents are paid $20,000
- Can you tell us more about your candidates, how has field setting with mentor shaped their development, and how have you built opportunities for exposure to other grade levels?
- Strunc – We have rural and urban partners which provides our residents to see different settings
- Strunc – Our residents have assignments to learn from other teachers and staff members about what they do
- Garcia – With our model, we focus on improving one aspect of teaching with a candidate
- Can you tell us about field supervisor training, the key components of training, and what you are continuously doing to support the site coordinators?
- Berg – Truly a mutually beneficial partnership
- Berg – Intentional in having orientation for site coordinator about what it means to be a liaison between the university and the district
- Garcia – We have in depth interviews to choose mentors
- Garcia – Constantly keeping relationships with residents
- Jones and Mr. Corzine, how do you measure a candidate’s progress towards readiness and do you have input on performance standards?
- Reed – Practice-based course work embedded in courses before and during residency
- Jones – We use modified version of T-test rubric, as we collect data we evaluate where our students are
- Corzine – Teachers react differently when observed, we ask teachers to do tasks and see how they respond as another tool
- Delano – Our candidates have to demonstrate skills, if they can’t do it, they do it again
- Tanabe, can you describe your governance practices over the course of the year, what are the roles of both program and the district, and can you provide us examples of how governance has enabled you both to respond to candidate needs?
- Tanabe – Partnership consists of sitting around a table and getting real about the matter at hand
- Tanabe – Year long experience sets a standard, so the program requires a larger commitment
Q and A
- SBEC Member – what is your elevator pitch for doing the residency program?
- Jones – be intentional about partnerships and have people in the room who can make decision
- Delano – Pick the right mentor for the residents
- Edmondson – More expensive model in terms of money as well as time and effort, so figure out how to make it sustainable
- Tanabe – Start with a pilot
- Goodson – Newness involved with it, full-on commitment from both sides, be ready to make investment, cost of teacher vacancy and turnover are more expensive
- SBEC Member – We need to become organized so that we can receive a teacher coming from residency. What can we do for you to accelerate the good work you are doing?
- Edmondson – Just acknowledging the level of work required for this, as well as build structures for this level of quality
- Goodson – If a stipend could be standardized, it could be beneficial
- MacDonald – The partnerships involved in the residency programs seem to be very beneficial, this collaboration should be the norm, all EPPs should be like this
- Eksaengsri – The reason the partnership works so well is we have money for substitute teachers that can be used for residents
- Garcia – We partnered with public impact, our mentors now get a significant stipend, $10k to $12k
- Jones – We need y’all to use your microphone and your voice to help us
- Gelsinger – How do you address the issue of students’ financial support ending while they are in residency?
- Jones – We moved from 9 month contracts to 10 month contracts
- Berg – We try to protect the fact that our students are still students
- Corzine – Right now we have the T-class grant, and our residents make $20k a year
- Delano – I was wondering if any of y’all are utilizing federal programs to fund the program
- Edmondson – We try to be nimble and use what we can on a district by district basis, some students are paid for residency but they are told upfront
Item 4: Discussion of Continuing Approval Review Practices and Stakeholder Panel
TEA Staff
- Focus has been to operationalize EPF to support common language, continuous improvement, and alignment
- We heard from you a desire to learn more about program review models that could support programs to focus on continuous improvement
- This work session is designed to start thinking about redesigning the continuing approval review process, vetting third party technical assistance and professional service providers, and updating commendation 4: Innovative EPP practices
- We must review programs for renewal of approval at least every 5 years
- Prior to review, we must conduct risk assessment about program to be reviewed
- Reviews we are currently engaged in are based on EPPs’ compliance with TAC and TEC
- Current on-site review process: risk assessment, pre-work, review-EPP and candidate records, post-review, and recommendation of continued approval
- We review sources of data, goals, and the rubric
- Sources of data for review are candidate and EPP records, course materials, performance assessments, etc.
- We don’t observe candidates
- Goals are certificate classes and routes
- Verify alignment with SBEC and TEC requirements
- Verify self-reported data
- Rubric involves aligning to current TAC/TEC
- Compliant/non-compliant
- Opening session
- Present reason for review
- Daily Debrief
- Review findings for the day
- Discuss detail and respond to questions
- Closing session
- Review findings and meet with staff from all programs
- Make recommendations
- We can communicate across programs and pick up tips
- After we finish the review, we have identified for the program what areas of their EPP need to be updated to align with rules
- Leave them with deadline of 4 months to make corrective actions. After 4 months, program will submit to us evidence of completing corrective action
- During 4 months, programs will ask for guidance
- Discussion: What are strengths and limitations of the current process?
- SBEC Member – In curriculum review, how are performance assessments and rubrics done?
- TEA Staff – We ask the program examples of performance assessments and rubrics used in their program in courses
- Galvan – The strengths are the support, asking questions and seeking clarification. Other strength is that it is very objective because it is aligned to code. Limitations are finding a way to not make the things we upload too lengthy, we need to triangulate our data so it is more robust
- Gore – One limitation is that an EPP could be 100% compliant and be a substandard preparer for teachers
- Muri and another SBEC Member agree
- Rodriguez – On the other hand, EPP could barely miss the mark, but be a strong preparer for teachers
- Another SBEC Member agrees, there should be a balance of compliance and quality
- Key ideas of Current CAR Onsite Process
- CAR report provides results and identifies corrective action
- CAR review focuses on all operational process components
- Review is evidence-based and report includes evidence of alignment with TAC/TEC
- Review verifies integrity of data
- Review verifies for compliance but evidence of quality of program is observed but not documented
- No EPP accountability or recognition for implementing recommendations, unless there is a required change
TEA Staff
- TEA had opportunity to facilitate Quality Review Pilot
- 5 EPPs were awarded TEA grant to be reviewed
- Focus of work is on teacher prep program
- EPP programs should have sustained and continuous improvement
- Focus areas
- Quality of selection
- Quality of content knowledge and teaching methods
- Quality of clinical placement
- Quality program performance management
- Quality of program partnerships
- SBEC Member – You mentioned that the evaluation of content knowledge is done in course work at the universities, is it possible to translate that to an alternative certification or non-IEG setting and what does that look like?
- The model that we were able to follow for this quality review had a component for in person or hybrid
- Review Process Logistics
- Three logistics call with prework documents submission
- Full review team and EPP leadership
- Various stakeholders groups, review team, EPP team
- Collaboration call to identify topic of deep dive
- End of review week is larger debrief
- TEA Staff – Panelists are four of five programs who participated in Quality Review Pilot
Dr. Ronald S. Beebe, University of Houston Downtown
- 15k+ students
- Largest producer of bilingual teachers in Houston area
Sarah Delano, Dallas College
Dr. Stacey Edmondson, Sam Houston State University
Dr. Abbie Strunc, Sam Houston State University
Dr. Helen Berg, Sam Houston State University
Dr. Jones, Tarleton State University
Dr Christy Reed, Tarleton State University
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TEA Staff
- What made your program decide to voluntarily participate in this review, and how did you communicate about it to your faculty and staff? If you had the opportunity to opt in again, would you and why?
- Beebe – It came to us from our dean, I thought it was a great idea. I love continuous improvement. I think with some modifications, we would do this again
- Delano – We value the feedback from the review, we asked them to come back next year
- Reed – We welcomed the opportunity to have this again, we had so much change and we wanted TPIUS to see it
- Edmondson – We wanted to be on the front end of growing and improving, we believe in accountability
- Considering the overall Quality Process Review you did, what components were most impactful and what was most challenging about the process?
- Edmondson – Y’all are right on target with the balance of compliance, the most meaningful thing for us was confirming our program was as high quality as we thought
- Reed – Collecting data and putting them into specific folders was eye-opening
- Delano – The level of specificity from the reviewers was most impactful. Feedback from Literacy reviewer was very helpful
- Beebe – The comments, feedback, and recommendations from reviewers were most helpful. The daily debrief could have been more conversational
- What did you learn about your program during the Quality Review experience, and to what extent did the quality review process support internal alignment and/or act as a catalyst for change?
- Strunc – We were able to use the collected data to figure out what was good in coursework and what was bad
- Jones – We were able to determine what was achievable. We want to see sharing of information across the state
- After the review, you identified focus areas for improvement, what are next steps to address them, and what resources do you need?
- Delano – We knew literacy course work was not satisfactory, during deep dive we were able to collaborate effectively. Resource-wise, it is hard to find the time and space to have conversations with school system partners
- Beebe – Bilingual teachers were not in bilingual classrooms so we need to fix that. As we expand this, we need to share information between universities
- Berg – Strengthening residency program while scaling will be important
- SBEC Member – Would the Quality Review process be beneficial for not just residencies?
- Jones – They rated us very fairly which helped us drive change
- Edmondson – The program should not matter as long as you have evidence of the quality standards
- Jones, you went through your second quality review in 5 years, what was the original target area from the first review, what growth did you see in those target areas in your more recent review, and what did it take to see this improvement?
- Jones – our target area was our entire program. It was helpful to have a second set of eyes helping us improve
- How did the quality review process differ from the current, continuing approval review process?
- Beebe – In the current review process, a few people sift through data, it is not a faculty-wide effort. For faculty, it is a blackbox process. With the quality review process, it builds relationships and allows reflection on whether we are improving or not
- Dr Jones – With the quality review process, we are able to identify our compliance level and our quality of work
- Do you have any overall recommendations for our quality review approach for Texas?
- Beebe – There was a disconnect between the TPI rubric and what we do in the state of Texas. Would be helpful if part of the review team included district/EPP representatives
- Delano – Danger of process like this is that it gives too many focus areas, there should only be a few of them to actually improve
- Edmondson – If we move this to an accreditation model, then there is a “good enough” component, which runs the risk of losing a continuous improvement model
SBEC Q&A
- Muri – Just a request that their prework should happen earlier so that it can be used to drive the process
- Rodriguez – I am curious who the reviewers are, you said they were experts, but what are their qualifications?
- Delano – Two reviewers were from Texas institutions, two were from outside of Texas, they were all teacher educators
- Edmondson – They go through TPI’s rigorous training
- Rodriguez – I would like to know how national accreditation compares to this process
- Edmondson – The observation component and interview structures are different
- SBEC Member – Did anyone have a passing STR rate?
- Delano – If you pass the STR, that gives us good information about if you have the foundational knowledge
- SBEC Member – If this becomes a part of our regulatory system, we might have folks who do not like the continuous improvement process. What do you all think might be helpful as we take this from an opt-in pilot to a required process?
- Reed – We are here to provide excellent teachers, all EPPs should have the continuous improvement process
- Delano – I don’t think EPPs should choose research areas, this review should tell us what matters most. This review should be presented at the outset so EPPs can see what is actually happening in their program
- MacDonald – How has the residency program influenced the traditional model, and can you graduate with a bachelors in education without a certification?
- Jones – That was UTEP. At our university, you can not graduate with a teacher ed degree and not be certified
- Delano – We let students get either their certificate or bachelor’s degree first because they need a longer runway to get everything done
TEA Staff
- One thing we heard from the panel and the board was that the quality review process focuses on quality components and where to draw the line between compliance and continuous improvement
- The board made connections between the panel and the three proposed actions to support implementation of the EPF
- TEA Staff – We are committed to stakeholder engagement
- TEA Staff – We will need to have discussion on who gets a quality review
- Proposed option for continuing approval review process is if data provides a warning light for accreditation, that speeds up the structure/timing of the quality review
- We have multiple considerations for all aspect of the CAR
- Considering using a third-party to redesign CAR process
- We want stakeholders engaged at each stage for CAR redesign process
- This would be driven by Texas reviewers
- Gore – This process, it looks like a grant program, these look like $50k to $75k reports?
- We would run an RFP, a competitive bidding process, we can negotiate the cost
- Gore – We want it to be Texas based, but I think we might also want outside support
- SBEC Member – Would this mean there would no longer be desk reviews?
- Correct
- SBEC Member – What happens with our really small programs?
- I think the cost question is important and one we will engage our stakeholders on
- Galvan – If we develop Texas, is this company going to modify or is it going to be independent?
- There are multiple vendors across the state who do similar processes, we would have it be a competitive process, and they would develop a Texas-specific review process
- Galvan – Then it is merging the desk audit and review and incorporating everything together?
- We would have streamlined version of audit
- Galvan – How are interviews conducted?
- We would engage with stakeholders, we are at an early step of the process
- Gelsinger – Would the CAR be for all certification types?
- This would explicitly be review for the teacher preparation program
- Muri – We need to be mindful of the balance of compliance and teacher quality
- Rodriguez – We need to make sure the national accreditation gives credit for areas of overlap
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Item 5: Update on State Board for Educator Certification Enabling Legislation from the 88th Texas Legislature, Regular Session
Item 6: Adjournment