ED Response to Public Comment

ED Response to Public Comments

Public Comment:

February 09, 2012

To Whom It may Concern:

I wish to comment on the IES study: Study of Promising Features of Teacher Preparation Programs; Phase 1—Recruitment. #4792

My first concern about the study proposed is there is no mention of the subjects’ time since completion of their teacher preparation programs. The effects of intense clinical experience vs. less clinical experience will be “washed out” within about 3 years.

A second concern is that there is no definition of the types of clinical experiences to be studies. It appears that the researchers have a model or a series of models in mind, but they are not described.

My third concern is that only reading and mathematics achievement is to be examined in terms of student achievement. It is not clear if the researchers are looking at proficiency, growth, or both.

Reno, NV

Response from ED:

March 23, 2012

Reno, NV,

Thank you for submitting your concerns.

First, teachers will only be eligible for the study if they have graduated from their program within the last 3 years or less as we agree that the program effects are not likely to be significant after 3 years past graduation. As you can see on page A-5 of Supporting Statement Part A, under ‘Eligible Teacher Pairs’ section 3, we indicate that teachers must have graduated within the last 3 years.

Second, we have not described the types of clinical experiences in detail in this package because we don’t have a specific model in mind. We are instead trying to determine what natural variation exists between programs relative to this feature. The Teacher Preparation Program Interview is designed to capture this existing variation so we can learn how this feature differs or is similar across a wide range of programs. As the study unfolds, we will fully describe the variation that is in the study sample and thus be able to characterize what core clinical experience difference we end up learning about.

Finally, we will be examining the increase in student test scores from Fall to Spring as our measure of student achievement. Through the study design, we are comparing student performance of students in classrooms where the teachers had differing preparation experiences.  The random assignment of students to classrooms leads to classes with equivalent student characteristics and achievement levels, on average.  However, we are also collecting a Fall pre-test score so that we can verify classroom equivalence on the achievement measure and increase the precision of our impact estimate by controlling for prior achievement levels. 

Thank you,

Amanda DeGraff, Ph.D.
Research Scientist

National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance
Institute of Education Sciences
U. S. Department of Education