MISCONCEPTION #1

Misconception #1 Misconception #2 Misconception #3 Misconception #4 Misconception #5

When states collect data, everyone has access to such data.

Some states do collect extensive data on teachers and students, but often the data are not accessible by teacher preparation programs. Federal, state, and university regulations often prohibit sharing such data. For example, the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) limits the types of K-12 and higher education student information that can be shared. This limitation often results in some student scores being removed from a data set. This removal of data creates problems with the accuracy of any analysis of teacher effectiveness using that data set.

Moreover, in some states certain teacher preparation program data are considered confidential. For example, New York considers teacher certification test scores to be confidential, although Texas does not.

Finally, the Institutional Review Board (IRB) that oversees all research activities at a university often restricts the use of data. Such actions curtail the ability of traditional teacher preparation programs to gather credible evidence on their graduates. For example, the IRB ruling of one Texas university informed university researchers that they could not use publicly available data on teacher test scores and teacher assignments and could not match teachers to student test scores in selected districts if the graduates refused to participate in a survey sent out to all graduates. In other words, the preparation program could use only data for teachers who actually responded to the survey—even if the nonsurvey data were publicly available.

Last updated: February 22, 2006