The MSU Teacher Preparation Program’s goal is to prepare justice-oriented professionals who are ready to teach on Day 1.
We test these ambitions against the data we collect. We update these sources regularly and pursue new ways to understand how well our program is working. We encourage you to browse the information we have compiled below in our effort to put ongoing improvement at the heart of our work.
List of Accredited Program Areas at MSU
1. Completer Impact and Effectiveness
Impact on Student Learning
Ultimately, a teacher’s job is to help students grow. The MSU teacher preparation program is actively working with our partner districts to gather data that shows the impact of our completers on student learning (as compared to teachers who were prepared at other institutions).
As a first step toward collecting this data, we have been working with the Lansing Public School District, a valued partner of the MSU College of Education, to explore how MSU-prepared teachers do on their annual evaluations (a percentage of which is based on student academic growth). Lansing has been one of the top-hiring district of MSU-prepared teachers since we started keeping those records. It is a diverse district: racially (39% Black students, 19% Latinx students, 6% Asian students, 10% bi-racial) and linguistically (16% of students receiving ELL services).
This table shows the “MSU advantage.” Teachers trained at MSU are consistently rated “highly effective” by district officials at a significantly greater rate than those trained in other teacher preparation programs.
Effectiveness
In November 2015, Public Act 173 was signed into law in Michigan. This legislation governs educator evaluations for teachers (MCL 380.1249) and administrators (MCL 380.1249b). MCL 380.1249 requires the board of a school district to adopt and implement for all teachers and administrators a rigorous, transparent, and fair performance evaluation system that does all of the following:
- Evaluates the teacher’s or administrator’s job performance at least
annually while providing timely and constructive feedback. - Establishes clear approaches to measuring student growth and provides
teachers and administrators with relevant data on student growth. - Evaluates a teacher’s or administrator’s job performance, using multiple
rating categories that take into account data on student growth. - Uses the evaluations to inform decisions regarding the effectiveness of
teachers and administrators; promotion, retention, and development of
teachers and administrators; whether to grant tenure or full certification;
and the removal of ineffective tenured and untenured teachers and
administrators.
How have MSU-prepared teachers done on these evaluations? This table shows that more than 99% of our teachers are rated “highly effective” or “effective.” About 15% of our teachers are rated “highly effective” in their first years of teaching. By year three, over a quarter of MSU teachers are rated as “highly effective.”
2. Employer Satisfaction and Stakeholder Involvement
Employer Satisfaction
The Michigan Department of Education developed an Administrator Survey during the 2020-2021 academic year. This survey is distributed to the lead administrator of Michigan school buildings where new teachers are working and asks them about the performance of their new hire. The initial results are now in and they show just how well MSU-prepared teachers are doing.
As this table demonstrates, MSU-prepared teachers outperform state-wide averages in every category. Particular strengths of MSU-prepared teachers include the ability to “understand and make accommodations based on a student’s IEP or Section 504 plan” and the ability to “utilize constructive criticism to reflect upon and improve practice.” In short, MSU teachers are deeply thoughtful and reflective practitioners who seek to meet the needs of all students.
Stakeholder Involvement
The governance and structure of our teacher preparation program is evolving as we seek to meet the needs of our many stakeholders. During the spring of 2023, we launched the search for a Director of Educator Preparation and Accreditation. This person will ensure that our programs at both the initial and advanced level are well coordinated and use data to drive improvement.
The Director will also assist us as we continue to grow the importance of our Teacher Preparation Program Advisory Group. This group will bring together TPP leadership, university leadership, students, alumni, and superintendents and other leaders from our leading K-12 partners. We are looking forward to creating a robust group that will help us create “mutually beneficial P-12 school and community arrangements for clinical preparation and share responsibility for continuous improvement of candidate preparation.”
3. Candidate Competency at the Time of Program Completion
Completer Survey Data
As this table shows, nearly all of our program graduates feel like they are ready to succeed in the classroom. One year later, 92.5% of those graduates still felt like they were well prepared to succeed in the profession, despite the fact that these graduates completed their student-teaching internship during the pandemic, mostly in virtual settings. This is nearly 8% higher than the state-wide average.
But what really sets Spartan educators apart is our work in supporting exceptional learners. At program completion, nearly 90% of our graduates feel they are well prepared to support English-language learners and students with disabilities. One year later, 70% of our graduates still feel that way. In the case of English-language learners, that is 17% better than the statewide average!
Michigan Test of Teacher Certification (MTTC) Results
Candidates in teacher preparation programs are required by Michigan state law to pass the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification (MTTC) in the area(s) relevant to their certification. This ensures that all teachers know the content that they will be asked to teach PK-12 students.
As this table shows, MSU-prepared teacher candidates consistently outperform their peers at other Michigan institutions on these exams (on average, with cumulative pass rates nearly 10% higher). We particularly excel in the area of elementary and secondary mathematics; elementary and secondary science; secondary history; and elementary education. Here, our MTTC scores outpace the statewide average by more than 10 percentage points!
Program Exit Data
In order to define exit standards for our program, we developed the Assessment of Progress (AoP). Teacher candidates must demonstrate mastery of the twenty-three aspects of teaching that make up the AoP.
The elements are grouped in the tool into six sections: Professional Responsibility, The Learner and Learning, Content Knowledge, Instructional Practice – Assessment, Instructional Practice – Planning, and Instructional Practice – Instruction, based on the primary learning progression addressed in each element. The available performance levels are Exceeds Expectations (4), Meets Exit Expectations (3), Meets Mid-year Expectations (2), Meets Early Expectations (1), or Does Not Meet Expectations (0).
In all program areas, the AoP rubric is completed independently by the intern, their mentor teacher, and their field instructor, followed by an AoP conference at which the three members of the triad
share their individual responses and determine a consensus score, which is submitted
by the field instructor on behalf of the triad. This assessment process is completed
four times during the internship year.
This table shows how the mean exit score for each AoP item by licensure area.
Intercultural Developmental Inventory Data
Intercultural competence is the capability to shift cultural perspective and appropriately adapt behavior to cultural differences and commonalities. We use the Intercultural Developmental Inventory (IDI) to understand the intercultural competence of our teacher candidates and how it has grown over their time in our program.
This table shows how our most recent cohort scored as they entered our program at entry. Starting this year, we will also re-survey all of our cohorts at program exit. We are excited to see our candidates grow and change over their time at MSU!
4. Ability of Completers to Be Hired in the Positions for Which They Were Prepared
As this table shows, the job market for teachers continues to be very hot. A decade ago, most of our program graduates needed to leave Michigan in order to find jobs. These days, our graduates have many more options–and a lot more of them are choosing to stay in Michigan (60%, in fact). What’s more, the average starting salary for a MSU-prepared educators was 10% higher in the spring of 2022 than in the spring of 2019.
5. Racial Diversity of Entering Cohorts and Completers
Like most other teacher preparation programs, the number of candidates who enroll in and complete our programs has decreased drastically over the past decade. We need to do a better job of supporting our candidates throughout their time in our program–from when they first walk onto campus until the time they leave us as certified teachers.
We are extremely confident that those candidates who leave our program and enter the classroom are skilled professionals. They are highly satisfied with their course of preparation here at MSU.
But we think we can do better–at recruitment, at retention, and at better understanding the experiences of diverse groups of students as they make their way through the MSU Teacher Preparation Program. In September of 2021, we set a goal that 20% of our completers would be Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). You can read about these efforts in this report.
In this table, we detail the number of completers in each licensure area and our progress towards our goals of achieving greater racial equity.
6. Cost of Attendance
University Tuition
The cost of undergraduate tuition has remained relatively stable across the past decade, having risen by about 5%.
That said, our program is committed to reducing the time it takes to receive teacher certification. This year, we announced that our program will now offer a four-year pathway to teacher certification, eliminating the nearly $40,000 cost of the internship year. In addition, the state of Michigan is now offering teacher candidates support in the form of a stipend for student teaching and a fellowship to offset the cost of university tuition.
| Year | University Cost of Attendance | Cost of Internship Year |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | $31,054 (in-state tuition: $15,192) | $37,292 (tuition: $17,280) |
| 2021-2022 | $29,898 (in-state tuition: $14,750) | $33,870 (tuition: $16,668) |
| 2020-2021 | $29,294 (in-state tuition: $14,460) | $31,950 |
| 2019-2020 | $29,220 (in-state tuition: $14,460) | $31,868 |
| 2018-2019 | $28,924 (in-state tuition: $14,460) | $31,546 |
| 2017-2018 | $28,534 (in-state tuition: $15,375) | $30,546 |
| 2016-2017 | $27,342 (in-state tuition: $14,880) | $29,248 |
| 2015-2016 | $26,100 (in-state tuition: $14,333) | $27,056 |
To learn more about cost and aid, visit https://admissions.msu.edu/cost-aid.
Licensure and Testing Fees in Michigan
Michigan Compiled Law (MCL 380.1538) authorizes the Michigan Department of Education to
collect fees for teacher licensure applications. The current cost of a Provisional Teaching Certificate is $160 for in-state applicants, and $210 for out-of-state applicants. Applications for additional endorsements cost $50. See this MDE document for more information.
Candidates in teacher preparation programs are required by Michigan state law to pass the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification (MTTC) in the area(s) relevant to their certification. The cost of that exam is currently $129 (per test, per attempt).