Building a Teacher Data System in California
Christine Ong, Deborah La Torre, Noelle Griffin, Seth Leon, Li Cai
National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing at the University of California, Los Angeles
Aim 1, the subject of this brief, focuses on creating a unified data system for California’s teacher education system, from preparation to classroom. A key goal for this is to combine data from two state agencies—the California Department of Education (CDE) and California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC)—to create a teacher level data system. By combining these data sets, we will be able to investigate patterns related to how California’s teachers are prepared, where they become employed, who they serve, and how long they stay. In the following sections, we explore: (1) why this is an important aim and how it fits in the state’s data landscape; (2) where we are in the process of this work; (3) key decisions we have made thus far that will shape our future path as well as lessons learned; and (4) our next steps. This brief serves as a progress report of our work and focuses on our methodological and analytical processes.
