Educator Preparation Advisory Group Goals, Metrics, and Strategies

The UNC System’s Educator Preparation Advisory Group is charged with identifying system-level goals and prioritized strategies and initiatives to accelerate improvement in teacher preparation across the UNC System, beginning with those recommended in the System Office’s 2018 report, Leading on Literacy.

Between October 2018 and February 2019, members identified and prioritized goals, metrics, and strategies to propose to broader stakeholder groups across the P20 education spectrum in North Carolina.

The outline below shows the Advisory Group’s proposed goals and strategies, alongside proposed metrics for measuring progress toward each goal. While this proposal has been unanimously approved by the Advisory Group, it is still in draft form pending input and feedback from other stakeholders throughout spring of 2019.

Goal	Metrics	Strategy
Recruit, select, and support a highly-qualified pool of teacher candidates and beginning teachers that closely mirrors the diversity of the public school student population.	Applications received overall and by gender, race & ethnicity Admission rates by gender, race & ethnicity Completion rates by gender, race & ethnicity Candidates’ mean scores on college entrance exams Pass rates on pre-professional skills tests Percentage of candidates exempt from pre-professional skills tests Retention for two years post-graduation overall and by gender, race & ethnicity	Help EPPs identify successful recruitment, support, and retention strategies for teacher candidates.
Ensure candidates attain essential pedagogical content knowledge and accomplish mastery of their content area, especially in evidence-based reading practices for all students, including those from diverse gender, racial, ethnic, economic, geographic, and linguistic backgrounds.	Candidates’ scores on edTPA Mean scores and pass rates on Foundations of Reading assessment Mean scores on North Carolina’s Employer Survey Academic growth of students taught by educators (EVAAS)	Prepare graduates who understand and can use evidence-based instructional practices in literacy, particularly including direct instruction strategies across all content areas, that are effective with a variety of learners.
Assess, build, and strengthen strategic partnerships between each UNC System Educator Preparation Program and its public school partners to ensure relevancy, continuous improvement, and preparation of high-quality teacher candidates.	Candidates’ number of clinical hours Number of candidates completing clinical experiences in high-need schools Documentation of the scaffolded progression of candidates’ clinical experiences across the program, aligned with coursework Academic growth of students taught by educators (EVAAS)	Make early, deliberate, and scaffolded clinical experiences more consistent across the UNC System, so that candidates’ coursework and field work are closely aligned.
Structure candidates’ coursework and clinical opportunities to enable them to see key practices and routines modeled, followed by rehearsal and practice with feedback in a variety of classroom settings.
Contribute to the state’s critical teacher workforce needs by preparing high quality teachers to successfully serve students from diverse gender, racial, ethnic, economic, geographic, and linguistic backgrounds, with a particular emphasis on hard-to-staff subject areas and high-need schools.	Number of graduates receiving initial licenses in hard-to-staff subject areas Job placement rates by licensure area Number of graduates employed and retained in high-poverty and low-performing schools Academic growth of students taught by educators (EVAAS)	Assist EPPs within the UNC System in identifying a limited number of skills that all teachers need to have mastered by day one, in alignment with the North Carolina Standard Course of Study and professional standards for teaching.