State Board of Education reviews standards for teacher preparation

(From the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education)

Missouri's ongoing work to implement new standards for the state's educator preparation programs was reviewed by the State Board of Education Tuesday in Jefferson City.

The State Board is responsible for establishing standards for the education, assessment and certification of all public school teachers and administrators in Missouri. The new Missouri Standards for the  Preparation of Educators, approved by the State Board in 2012, took effect in March.

"The new standards are designed to ensure educator preparation programs prepare effective teachers and leaders who get results," said Commissioner of Education Chris L. Nicastro. "Effective educators are key to improving instruction in classrooms throughout the state."

The new standards include annual performance reports for Missouri's educator preparation programs. The reports will allow programs to see how well they are meeting the state's expectations for preparing educators and determine areas where improvement is needed. Programs will be reviewed annually and classified as accredited, provisionally accredited or unaccredited.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has been working with staff from Missouri's educator preparation programs, teachers and administrators at schools in Missouri, and national education experts to develop and implement the new standards.

The standards focus on six areas:

• Academics ‒ Prospective educators demonstrate knowledge of general education, content knowledge and pedagogy.
• Design and assessment ‒ Data from fair, valid and reliable assessments are used to measure the performance of prospective educators and educator preparation programs.
• Field and clinical experiences ‒ Field and clinical experiences offered in collaboration with elementary and secondary schools support the development of  prospective educators.
• Candidates ‒ A diverse pool of candidates who demonstrate potential for effectiveness as educators are recruited, admitted, developed and retained.
• Faculty ‒ Faculty members for educator preparation programs are qualified for their assignments, recruited from diverse populations and model effective professional practices in teaching, learning, scholarship and service.
• Operations and resources ‒ Operations and resources are available to govern, develop, support and maintain the educator preparation program.

Preparing, developing and supporting effective educators is one of the primary goals of the state's Top 10 by 20 initiative, which calls for Missouri to rank among the top 10 performing states in education in the nation by the year 2020.

For more information about the new standards for educator preparation programs, visitwww.dese.mo.gov/eq/ep/MoSTEP/.