Educators and policymakers across the United States recognize a growing urgency to improve the nation’s systems of teacher preparation. Ensuring that teachers stay and thrive in the profession depends largely on having system-wide policies and practices in place that address teacher shortages, promote equity and excellence, and cultivate expertise, diversity, and more.

The California State University (CSU) system partnered with the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation to launch the New Generation of Educators Initiative (NGEI), in an effort to transform the nature and quality of teacher preparation at both individual CSU campuses and across the CSU system as a whole. To answer the question, “What does it take to transform teacher education?” WestEd and SRI International conducted an evaluation to examine and share learnings about the CSU-led effort to implement large-scale clinically oriented teacher preparation reform.

As part of a series of new evaluation reports that explore key transformational elements of effective teacher preparation programs, this paper addresses how programs can expand their capacity to use data for continuous improvement through the following levers:

  • Lever 1: Develop data sources that can inform improvement efforts
  • Lever 2: Delineate clear roles to support continuous improvement
  • Lever 3: Build an infrastructure for efficient data entry and analysis
  • Lever 4: Establish a culture of improvement through routines for data review and use

To find out more about lessons learned and promising practices that emerged throughout the implementation of the NGEI, download the related papers in this four-part study:

  1. Building Strong Partnerships to Improve Clinically Oriented Teacher Preparation
  2. Strengthening the Clinical Orientation of Teacher Preparation Programs
  3. The NGEI Approach to Improving Teacher Preparation in the CSU Through a System of Supports