Introduction
Academic Year	Reporting to the Secretary
Aggregate Pass Rate	Reporting to the State
Alternative Route to Certification or Licensure	Secondary School
Cohort of Program Completers	Single Assessment Pass Rate
Cut Score	State
Elementary School	Student
High and Low Poverty Districts	Sufficient Content Knowledge
Initial Certification	Summary Pass Rate
Institution of Higher Education	Supervised Practice Teaching
Pass Rate	Supervising Faculty
Single Assessment Pass Rate	Teacher Certification/Licensure Assessment
Aggregate Pass Rate	Teacher Preparation Program
Summary Pass Rate	Teaching Candidate
Program Completer	Test Closure Date
Reporting to the General Public	Waiver

Introduction

Section 207 of the Higher Education Act, as amended, mandated the creation of a new reporting system on the quality of teacher preparation.

• Institutions of higher education with teacher preparation programs enrolling students receiving aid authorized by the Act must report annually to states on the pass rates of their graduates (or program completers) and other program information every April.



• States receiving funds authorized under the Act are required to report annually to the U.S. Department of Education on a number of aspects concerning the quality of teacher preparation in their state every October.



• The Secretary of Education is also required by section 207 to prepare annually a report on the quality of teacher preparation in the nation for the Congress and the public starting in April 2002.

In mandating this new reporting system, section 207 also required that the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) develop key definitions for terms and uniform reporting methods (including key definitions for the consistent reporting of pass rates on each assessment used by states in certifying or licensing new teachers). The NCES product is the Reference and Reporting Guide for Preparing State and Institutional Reports on the Quality of Teacher Preparation available on the web at www.title2.org.

This glossary lists the terms and definitions developed by NCES. For further details, please consult the guide cited above.

Academic Year: Any period of 12 consecutive months, as defined by the state.

Aggregate Pass Rate: See definition of "pass rate."

Alternative Route to Certification or Licensure: As defined by the state.

Cohort of Program Completers: Individuals who met all requirements of a state-approved teacher preparation program in a given academic year. (See definition of "program completer.")

Cut Score: The minimum score required by the state to pass a teacher certification or licensure assessment.

Elementary School: [A] day or residential school which provides elementary education, as determined under State law. (See section 14101(14) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.)

High and Low Poverty Districts: The U.S. Department examined several methods to determine the high poverty districts for the Title II waiver data collection. The Department decided to adopt a state approach since it will not be comparing states with one another. Using the Census data, which have been mapped to school districts, we calculated a child poverty rate for each district in your state. The child poverty rate is number of children age 5-17 divided by the total number of children age 5-17 living in the district.

The child poverty rates were rank ordered from highest to lowest. The rates were rounded to the nearest 100th. Any district falling into the top quartile (the top 25%) have been defined as "high poverty". There is no numeric adjustment.

The district boundaries were mapped with 2000 Census Data. The poverty numbers are from the 1997 Poverty Update. If you'd like to learn more about how Census arrived at its poverty estimates, follow this link: www.census.gov/hhes/www/saipe.html.

The Census file includes only regular school districts with the following NCES codes (this is the standard NCES district definition):

• local school district that is not a component of a supervisory union


• local school district component of a supervisory union sharing a superintendent and administrative services with other local school districts.

It does NOT include:

• charter schools
• DoD Schools (although non-DoD public schools on military bases are included because these are part of the regular public school system).

Initial Certification: As specified in State Questionnaire Ic. - as defined by the state.

Institution of Higher Education: Section 101(a) of the Higher Education Act provides a general definition of "institution of higher education," as follows:

"For purposes of this Act, other than Title IV [Student Financial Assistance], the term 'institution of higher education' means an educational institution in any State that -

1. admits as regular students only persons having a certificate of graduation from a school providing secondary education, or the recognized equivalent of such a certificate;
2. is legally authorized within such State to provide a program of education beyond secondary education;
3. provides an educational program for which the institution awards a bachelor's degree or provides not less than a 2-year program that is acceptable for full credit toward such a degree;
4. is a public or other nonprofit institution; and
5. is accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting agency or association, or if not so accredited, is an institution that has been granted preaccreditation status by such an agency or association that has been recognized by the Secretary for the granting of preaccreditation status, and the Secretary has determined that there is a satisfactory assurance that the institution will meet the accreditation standards of such an agency or association within a reasonable time."

Section 101(b) defines additional institutions that are included:

"For purposes of this Act, other than Title IV, the term 'institution of higher education' also includes -

1. any school that provides not less than a 1-year program of training to prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation and that meets the provision of paragraphs (1), (2), (4), and (5) of subsection (a); and
2. a public or nonprofit private educational institution in any State that, in lieu of the requirement in subsection (a)(1), admits as regular students persons who are beyond the age of compulsory school attendance in the State in which the institution is located."

Pass Rate: The percentage of program completers who passed assessment(s) taken for initial certification or licensure in the field of preparation.

Single Assessment Pass Rate: The proportion of program completers who passed the assessment among all who took the assessment.

Aggregate Pass Rate: The proportion of program completers who passed all the tests they took in each of six skill or knowledge areas, among all program completers who took one or more tests in each area.

Summary Pass Rate: The proportion of program completers who passed all tests they took for their area of specialization among those who took one or more tests in their specialization areas.

Program Completer: A person who has met all the requirements of a state-approved teacher preparation program. Program completers include all those who are documented as having met such requirements. Documentation may take the form of a degree, institutional certificate, program credential, transcript, or other written proof of having met the program's requirements. In applying this definition, the fact that an individual has or has not been recommended to the state for initial certification or licensure may not be used as a criterion for determining who is a program completer.

Reporting to the General Public: Making the information in institutional and state reports available widely and publicly to members of the public interested in the performance of the institution's teacher preparation program. For institutions, this includes providing the required information in publications such as "school catalogues and promotional materials sent to potential applicants, secondary guidance counselors, and prospective employers of the institution's graduates." (See section 207(f)(2) of Title II.)

Reporting to the Secretary: Submitting annual state reports to the Office of Postsecondary Education in the US Department of Education.

Reporting to the State: Submitting annual institutional reports to the state agency, commission, or board, in the state in which the institution is located, that is responsible for preparing the state report under section 207.

Secondary School: "A] day or residential school which provides secondary education, as determined under State law, except that it does not include any education provided beyond grade 12." (See section 14101(25) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.)

Single Assessment Pass Rate: See definition of "pass rate."

State: Any of the states of the United States, as well as the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, Guam, American Samoa, the United States Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Freely Associated States (the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of Palau).

Student: An individual enrolled in a teacher preparation program leading to an initial state teaching certificate or license.

Sufficient Content Knowledge: For a subject-area teacher, having "sufficient content knowledge" means that the teacher holds at least a bachelor's degree and demonstrates a high level of competency in all subject areas in which he or she teaches through-

• Completing an academic major in each of the subject areas in which he or she provides instruction, or
• Passing the state's assessments of subject-area knowledge (however a state chooses to define "passing" for this purpose).
  

Supervised Practice Teaching: Practice teaching or internship in elementary or secondary schools required either by the state or the entity offering the program as a condition for completion of a teacher preparation program or for being considered for initial state licensure or certification and supervised by faculty as defined below.

Supervising Faculty: All persons who the institution regards as having faculty status, who were assigned by the teacher preparation program to provide supervision and evaluation of student teaching, and who have an administrative link or relationship to the teacher preparation program.

Teacher Certification/Licensure Assessment: A test or other structured method that measures the qualifications of prospective teachers, has a pass-fail outcome, and is used by the state for teacher certification or licensure.

Teacher Preparation Program: A state-approved course of study, the completion of which signifies that an enrollee has met all the state's educational and/or training requirements for initial certification or licensure to teach in the state's elementary or secondary schools. A teacher preparation program may be either a regular program or an alternative route to certification, as defined by the state. Also, it may be within or outside an institution of higher education.

In applying this definition, states and institutions may not determine that a teacher preparation program concludes after an individual has passed all examinations the state uses for initial certification or licensure, unless the state or institution requires that an individual pass these examinations before it will confer a degree, institutional certificate, program credential, transcript, or other proof of having met the program's requirements.

In addition, for the purpose of reporting, the guide considers all regular teacher preparation programs at a single institution of higher education to be a single program.

Teaching Candidate: A completer of a teacher preparation program who has taken one or more assessments used by the state in which the program is located for initial teacher certification or licensure.

Test Closure Date: The date, specified by the state, after which test results will not be included in pass rates for an academic year cohort.

Waiver: Any temporary or emergency permit, license, or other authorization that permits an individual to teach in a public school classroom without having received an initial certificate or license from that state or any other state. Teachers without an initial certificate or license from any state should be included in the waiver count if they:

• Hold temporary or emergency licenses or permits
• Are pursuing an alternative route to certification
• Are teaching as long-term substitutes

For Title II purposes, the waiver counts do not include teachers who received an initial certificate or license in another states, who are teaching out-of-field, or teaching on provisional licenses that only require teaching before full certification.

State Pages Links:
Introduction | Standards | Certification | Assessments
Program Performance | Waivers | Teacher Quality | Supplemental

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