Prior research has connected characteristics of cooperating teachers who supervise student teaching to performance measures of the teacher candidates they host, suggesting more effective teachers may also be better mentors. The specific measures of cooperating teacher effectiveness considered in this prior literature (value added and performance…

In April 2021, the Washington State Legislature appropriated $60,000 of the federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) III funds of the American Rescue Plan Act to support a technical advisory workgroup to explore recommended residency options for pre-service educators. This had a focus on educators of color and…

A growing literature documents the importance of student teaching placements for teacher development. Emerging evidence from this literature highlights the importance of the mentor teacher who supervises this placement, as teachers tend to be more effective when they student teach with a mentor who is a more effective teacher. But the efficacy of…

Two recent CALDER studies published in "Exceptional Children" provide new evidence about special education teacher preparation and its implications for students with disabilities. The first study (Theobald et al., 2021) shows that special educators who received dual endorsements in special education and another subject had lower rates of…

COVID-19 profoundly affected teacher preparation during the 2019-20 school year. Based on survey responses from nearly all Washington state teacher education programs (TEPs), Kathryn Choate, Dan Goldhaber, and Roddy Theobald find that the pandemic had predictable but concerning effects on teacher preparation. Most notably, student-teaching…

We use comprehensive data on student teaching placements from 14 teacher education programs (TEPs) in Washington State to explore the sorting of teacher candidates to the teachers who supervise their student teaching ("cooperating teachers") and the schools in which student teaching occurs. We find that, all else equal, teachers with…

We used data on the student teaching placements, degrees, teaching credentials, and workforce outcomes of more than 1,300 graduates of special education teacher education programs in Washington to provide a descriptive portrait of specific measures of special education teacher preparation and their relationships with workforce entry and…

A growing quantitative literature finds evidence that student teaching placements predict later outcomes of teacher candidates and their students, but there is little large-scale quantitative evidence about the mechanisms for these estimated relationships. We use data from a survey of STEM teachers in Washington State to better understand how…

We exploit within-teacher variation in the years that math and reading teachers in grades 4-8 host an apprentice ("student teacher") in Washington State to estimate the causal effect of these apprenticeships on student achievement, both during the apprenticeship and afterwards. While the average causal effect of hosting a student teacher…

COVID-19 profoundly impacted teacher preparation during the close of the 2019-20 school year. Based on survey responses from nearly all Washington State teacher education programs (TEPs), we find that the pandemic had predictable but concerning effects on teacher preparation; most notably, student teaching requirements were greatly reduced or…

Purpose: A burgeoning literature investigates the importance of student teaching placements for teacher candidate development, but an important perspective that is largely missing from the existing literature is that of the school districts that host student teachers. In this paper, we describe the student teaching process from the perspective of…

Washington State struggles to retain qualified and diverse teachers. This teacher shortage is particularly acute in rural areas. To address this issue, the 2019 State Legislature directed the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) to produce a report with policy recommendations for increasing student teachers' field placement in rural areas…

Purpose: A burgeoning literature investigates the importance of student teaching placements for teacher candidate development, but an important perspective that is largely missing from the existing literature is that of the school districts that host student teachers. In this paper, we describe the student teaching process from the perspective of…

A growing quantitative literature finds evidence that student teaching placements predict later outcomes of teacher candidates and their students, but there is little large-scale quantitative evidence about the mechanisms for these estimated relationships. We use data from a survey of STEM teachers in Washington State to better understand how…

We use comprehensive data on student teaching placements from 14 teacher education programs (TEPs) in Washington State to explore the sorting of teacher candidates to the teachers who supervise their student teaching ("cooperating teachers" or CTs) and the schools in which student teaching occurs. All else equal, teachers with more…