By Cora Goldston
March 25, 2020
To provide support for new teachers, states must understand the paths teachers take after completing their training. The Michigan Department of Education (MDE) is interested in teachers’ paths from both traditional and alternative educator preparation providers. To help MDE better understand teachers’ trajectories, Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest provided coaching on strategies to report teacher postgraduation certification, employment, and retention statistics for each of Michigan’s educator preparation providers.
Developing a diverse teacher workforce for a diverse student body
Michigan has more than 1.5 million students in grades K–12. Of these students, 32 percent are students of color and 5 percent are English learner students. In addition, Michigan students attend school in a variety of settings: 36 percent of the state’s public schools are located in suburban settings, 28 percent in rural settings, 22 percent in urban settings, and 13 percent in towns. (For more stats on Michigan’s students, check out REL Midwest’s state data profiles and the Michigan education facts infographic.)
To develop a teacher workforce to serve Michigan’s diverse student population, 35 educator preparation providers offered 84 teaching programs as of the 2018/19 academic year. These programs included those offering both initial certification and additional endorsements (for teachers who have already attained their initial certification). Michigan providers also offered approved preparation programs for career and technical education teachers, administrators, and other educators.
Kelli Cassaday, strategic implementation consultant with the Office of Educator Excellence at MDE, notes that collecting and analyzing educator preparation provider data aligns with MDE’s vision to support all students: “One of our strategic goals is to increase the diversity of the [teacher] workforce. More specifically, we’re working to ensure students have access to teachers with varied backgrounds to encourage empathy and increase educational success for Michigan’s diverse student population. In addition, we are expanding our #proudMIeducator initiative to emphasize recruitment of diverse educators.”
>> Looking for research on recruiting and retaining teachers of color? Browse our related Ask A REL reference desk response.
Coaching on collecting and reporting state- and provider-level teacher statistics
To help MDE learn more about the providers preparing the state’s teacher workforce and the paths of those completing these programs, REL Midwest hosted a series of coaching sessions on collecting and reporting educator preparation provider data. The sessions included the following components:
- Identifying what state- and provider-level statistics to report and where to find those statistics.
- Presenting summaries of REL Midwest’s preliminary findings.
- Reviewing the final state- and provider-level data.
- Creating a plan to share the data in a visually appealing and easy-to-understand format.
MDE is using completer data from educator preparation providers to inform a systemwide approach to teacher preparation and support. MDE and educator preparation providers are working together to ensure that all Michigan students have access to qualified teachers.
In reflecting on the process, Cassaday noted that “the data were very useful to identify where we are and identify EPPs [educator preparation providers] who are incorporating successful recruitment and retainment programs. By digging into state-level and EPP-level outcomes, we have a better picture of the nuances of our educator workforce.”
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