Environmental Scan Questions for Campus Leaders

In order to construct a general picture of how well an institution's teacher preparation program is faring - in terms of enrollment, diversity, and whether graduates ultimately go on to serve in K-12 schools - campus leaders responsible for the success of the program should be able to ask some "environmental scan" questions, such as those provided in the list on this page. Such questions are focused on outcomes that matter to the public, policy makers, and funders. These questions are intended to provide a symptomatic overview that can subsequently lead to a focused review of strengths and weaknesses within the teacher preparation program.

The theory behind these questions is that all teacher preparation programs exist primarily to serve the needs of others. Based on this theory, college and university presidents need to learn whether they are, in fact, being successful in meeting those needs, as a first step in assessing the overall effectiveness of their teacher education programs.

• How many of our program graduates are being hired into teaching positions?
• What school districts are we primarily serving?



• What percentage of their new hires did we supply 10 years ago?
• What percentage of their new hires did we supply last year and the year before that?


• What are the demographics of the student population served by those districts?



• What are the demographics of the program graduates we send to those districts?


• What percentages of the persons applying for entry into our teacher preparation program do not meet the minimum qualifications for admission?



• Why don't they meet the minimums?
• Was their previous educational preparation at our institution?
• Was their previous educational preparation from another institution?
• Have the reasons for failure been communicated to those who provided the prior educational preparation?


• What percentages of our teacher preparation program graduates successfully achieve state licensure/certification within two years of graduation?
• How do students of those school districts primarily served by our program graduates perform on state or standardized assessments of learning compared to similarly situated K-12 districts?
• How do K-12 district officials and parents of K-12 students compare our teacher preparation program graduates to the graduates from other programs?



• What kinds of special recognitions do our program graduates receive once they are in the profession?
• How much special recognition do our program graduates receive compared to other programs' graduates?


• Is the retention-in-the-profession rate for our program graduates better or worse than other teacher preparation programs?