Largely in response to Race to the Top, states are beginning to evaluate their teacher preparation programs based on their graduates’ contribution to raising student achievement. Such evaluations are meant to provide teacher educators with data to improve program quality, but do not separate the effects of the selection of teacher candidates into programs from the effects of program structural features, nor investigate the mechanisms whereby a program’s graduates may be more or less effective. Recent guidelines for teacher preparation put forth by NCTQ have brought questions of the importance of the structural features of preparation into a larger education policy spotlight, as these guidelines largely lack empirical basis.

Only two lines of research have studied the relationships between these features and teacher effectiveness, primarily at the elementary level (Harris & Sass, 2011; Boyd, et al., 2009). Research has identified differences in teacher effectiveness across the 15 University of North Carolina institutions, but explanations for this variation remain outstanding (Henry, et al., 2013). As such, this study asks, What are the relationships between the structural features of teacher preparation programs (TPPs) and student achievement? Combining an administrative database in North Carolina and data collected from the 15 UNC institutions, I use five years of student test score data to estimate the relationships between the structural features of TPPs and student achievement in high school Algebra I and English I.

The primary structural features of TPPs are coursework and field experiences. Coursework typically involves subject matter, pedagogy, and foundations coursework and other courses including educational technology. Field experiences include early field experiences and student teaching. Early field experiences occur prior to student teaching and may include classroom observations or tutoring. Student teaching typically occurs at the end of a program, lasts between ten weeks and a year, and involves an extended time of full teaching responsibility. Other important features of student teaching are program supervision and requiring a student teaching seminar.

Three primary sources of bias in estimating the effects of structural features complicate this analysis: the selection of teacher candidates into preparation programs, the non-random sorting of teachers into schools, and the non-random assignment of students to teachers. Typically, selection effects are considered part of program effectiveness, with the effects of the program itself. To isolate the effects of the structural features of programs, differential selection into TPPs must be accounted for. Because universities have multiple TPPs within them, I use university fixed effects to create a counterfactual where teachers of similar academic ability are compared to one another. Including a rich set of school- and student- level covariates attempts to control for the bias associated with beginning teachers’ initial school context and non-random assignment of students to teachers.

Results indicate that subject matter coursework is a positive predictor of English I achievement, as are early field experience hours for both English I and Algebra I. This work has timely answers to important policy questions for the structure of preparation programs and state certification policies.