Accreditation

Impact Measure 1: Completer effectiveness and impact on P-12 learning and development (Component 4R.1)    

Student Growth is defined as a demonstrable change in an individual student’s or group of students’ knowledge or skills, as evidenced by gain and/or attainment on two or more assessments, between two or more points in time and must comprise at least 30 percent of the evaluation. At this time, the state tracks those candidates with valid identifiers (e.g., Social Security number or Illinois Education Identification Number) that can be matched and graduated candidates that teach within Illinois. Candidate impact on student growth data are included in Table 1 below. Most graduate Impact ratings fall in the proficient category across the top five programs reporting teacher evaluation data. Since these initial report data also include Teaching Skills data, the state is working on separating these metrics into two separate and distinct reports.    

Table 1: Impact on Students & Demonstrated Teaching Skills  

Teaching effectiveness is also reflected in Table 1 above, with most graduates across teacher preparation programs demonstrating Proficient ratings. This part of the report includes core items from the each EPP assessment across the state that are relevant to teaching effectiveness, allowing the state to track candidate to graduate teacher performance.

Impact Measure 2: Satisfaction of employers and stakeholder involvement (Components R4.2/R5.3/RA4.1)    

One source of data available by the state are graduate entry into teaching, which are employment data directly from the state’s public schools (including charter schools). Completers employed in a non-public or out-of-state school are not included in this report. Employment includes all educational roles requiring a state educator license (excluding substitute teachers). Table 2 shows the first-year placement profile of 2021 graduates. As mentioned, just over 60% are able to be tracked with Illinois Public Schools while the remaining individuals are not. A second data source are student placement statewide data which provides counts of candidate educational roles. This allows for tracking of graduate educational roles through their careers, should they remain within the Illinois Public School system. A third possible source is the Illinois Statewide Shared Employer Survey which is still being developed by the PEP leaders and piloted across the state to elicit employer satisfaction.

Table 2: First-Year Placement Profile of 2021 Graduates by Program

The PEP program attempted to contact completers in during their first year in the field to solicit their feedback on their experiences. The result is the online Completer's Survey Report is organized in a series of 4 sections: Academic Background, Teacher Preparation Quality, Teacher Preparation Components, and Teaching Practice/Job Satisfaction. Table 3 shows the results from a part of the Teacher Preparation Quality section, the majority of respondents stated that Instructors, Field Experiences, and Student Teaching experiences were of most value in the program and there were few program components considered as not valuable. Table 4 shows the distribution from a subsection Teacher Satisfaction from Teacher Practice/Job Satisfaction where completers were asked to rank their top five ways jobs could be improved. Most completers selected administrative support, fewer mandated assessments, overall workload, salary, and colleague support as their first choice to help with job satisfaction. Administrator support and instructional resources were the top two overall categories ranked as a way to help with job satisfaction. This information will also be used as formative assessment for future program design changes.   

Table 3: Completer Survey – Value of Teacher Preparation Program

Table 4: Completer Survey – Rankings of How to Improve Job Satisfaction

Outcome Measure 1: Candidate competency at program completion (Components R3.3/RA3.4)

Graduation Rates (initial & advanced levels)

As indicated in the 2024 CAEP Annual Report, the following are the graduation numbers:

• 63 initial program completers
• 25 advanced program completers

The following are the certification rates for the above completers as reported by the Illinois Licensure Testing System:

• Initial certification rate: 92%
• Advanced certification rate: 100%

Outcome Measure 2: Ability of completers to be hired in positions for which they have prepared

Hiring Rates (initial & advanced levels)

99% of all initial graduates are hired in professional positions within 6 months of graduation.