Curriculum Alignment

Raising Texas Teachers is a Charles Butt Foundation initiative aims to improve the status of the teaching profession by enhancing the recruitment of a talented and diverse teacher workforce through the Charles Butt Scholarship for Aspiring Teachers, supporting retention of teachers in the classroom, and partnering with university-based teacher preparation programs to raise the overall quality of teacher preparation across the state by promoting continuous improvement in the field. 

Through the Foundation’s partnerships with teacher preparation programs, faculty teams identify common areas for improvement and form cross-university groups called Educator Preparation Program Improvement Communities (EPPICs). Each EPPIC spent two years listening to mentor teachers, teacher candidates, and other stakeholders, testing interventions on their own campuses, and learning from what other universities were finding.

Each EPPIC shared a write-up of their findings. The post below shares what one of these EPPICs discovered. To learn more, click here. 

Why This Work Matters

The urgency behind this work was rooted in direct experience and stakeholder feedback. Field supervisors, principals, mentor teachers, and teacher candidates were all engaged in the inquiry process, and consistent themes quickly emerged.

Mentor teachers frequently observed that teacher candidates struggled with differentiation, particularly in leading small-group instruction, and with using student data to inform teaching. At the same time, teacher candidates often reported feeling underprepared for classroom management, especially in diverse classrooms where students bring a wide range of cultural and academic needs.

This data prompted an essential guiding question for the study: How do teacher candidates and mentor teachers perceive teacher candidate preparedness—and where do those perceptions diverge?

During survey design, another challenge surfaced. Differences in terminology across districts, educator preparation programs, and teacher candidates highlighted misalignment in language and expectations. It became clear that without shared definitions of “preparedness,” even well-designed instruments risked inconsistent interpretation.

What We Did: Individually and Collectively

To better understand these challenges, the EPPIC engaged in improvement science, implementing context-specific “tests of change.”

Across all programs, several shared strategies emerged:

• Embedding a co-created teacher candidate development toolkit (linked below) into coursework and field experiences
• Providing shared resources to candidates, field supervisors, and mentor/cooperating teachers
• Using survey data to intentionally align coursework with clinical expectations
• Expanding performance-based assessments to better reflect real classroom practice

Although implementation varied by institution, each approach was shaped by local district partnerships, program structures, and candidate needs.

As an EPPIC, the institutions met regularly to share findings, reflect on progress, and refine their approaches. A key example of this partnership was the co-development of the stakeholder survey itself, adapted from Texas Education Agency (TEA) Principal and First-Year Teacher surveys. This shared design process ensured cross-institutional relevance and strengthened the integrity of the data.

By designing the survey together and analyzing results collectively, each institution influenced and was influenced by the others. Over time, we began to see that “preparedness” is not a fixed definition, but a concept shaped by context, expectation, and lived experience.

These shared conversations moved the EPPIC beyond isolated program perspectives and toward a more unified understanding of teacher preparation. Perhaps most importantly, the collaborative process itself became a tool for improvement—allowing us to learn faster, more deeply, and more intentionally than we could have individually.

Evidence and Data

To ground our work in evidence, we conducted a multi-stakeholder program evaluation using a survey instrument adapted from TEA tools (questions included in the presentation linked below).

Participants included:

• 95 teacher candidates
• 89 cooperating teachers

The survey focused on four core domains:

• Planning
• Instructional Practices (feedback, assessment, questioning, and data-driven decision-making)
• Classroom Environment
• Differentiation

We analyzed both quantitative Likert-scale data and qualitative open-ended responses. Particular attention was given to gaps between candidate self-perceptions and mentor teacher evaluations, using these differences as key indicators for program improvement.

What We Found

Several consistent findings emerged across institutions. Teacher candidates demonstrated strong foundational skills in lesson planning, with most rated proficient or accomplished in designing standards-aligned instruction. Professional dispositions (such as reliability, collaboration, and relationship-building) were also consistently strong.

Differentiation emerged as the most significant shared area for growth. Candidates often struggled to translate theory into practice, particularly in small-group instruction. Similarly mentor teachers noted teacher candidates had limited ability to analyze and apply student data effectively.

Data collection itself presented challenges. Survey completion rates limited the depth of analysis in some cases, and aligning language across stakeholder groups proved more complex than anticipated.

Several important tensions surfaced:

• Mentor teachers sometimes expected candidates to function as teachers of record earlier than intended
• Candidates reported difficulty managing classrooms with diverse cultural needs
• Mentor teachers also acknowledged their own challenges with data analysis

These findings highlighted a critical insight: growth is needed across the entire system, not solely within teacher candidates.

Cross-Campus Patterns

Despite contextual differences, consistent patterns emerged across teacher preparation programs: strong planning skills, developing classroom management abilities, and ongoing challenges with differentiation and data use. These similarities reinforced the need for shared, system-level solutions.

This work offers several important implications for educator preparation programs.

What Programs Should Try

• Leverage user-centered data to drive continuous improvement- asking the same questions of teacher candidates and mentor teachers honored both groups’ expertise and exposed key areas for improvement 
• Intentionally align coursework with clinical expectations
• Provide early, practice-based opportunities for differentiation and classroom management
• Share tools and resources across all stakeholders
• Align on key terms early- it is imperative to ensure all stakeholders have the same definitions of the concepts being discussed

Key Takeaways

Preparedness is not only about knowledge—it is about the ability to apply that knowledge effectively in complex, real-world classrooms. That application requires alignment across all stakeholders in the preparation system.

One of the most powerful insights from this work is that growth is required at every level of the system. Mentor teachers, who serve as both instructors and coaches, expressed a strong desire for continued learning, particularly in areas such as data analysis, differentiation, and supporting diverse learners.

This reinforces a fundamental truth: teacher preparation is not the responsibility of universities alone. It is a shared endeavor across districts, schools, classrooms, and preparation programs.

Next Steps

Moving forward, the collaborative will continue refining and expanding the teacher candidate development toolkit while strengthening alignment between coursework and clinical experiences. A parallel focus will be deepening support for mentor teachers as instructional coaches, recognizing their essential role in candidate development.

This work surfaced important considerations for future research. Combining multiple complex domains such as classroom management, differentiation, and data analysis, within a single survey may have limited clarity. More targeted instruments may better capture these distinct dimensions of practice.

At its core, this collaboration underscores a simple but powerful idea: meaningful improvement begins with listening—to candidates, to mentor teachers, and to one another. Through that listening, we move closer to preparing teachers who are not only confident, but truly classroom ready.