Standard 4: Program Engagement in System Improvement
Standard 4 and its six aspects read as follows.
Program practices strengthen the P-20 education system in light of local needs and in keeping with the program’s mission.
The program is committed to and invests in strengthening and improving the education profession and the P-20 education system. Each program’s context (or multiple contexts) provides particular opportunities to engage the field’s shared challenges and to foster and support innovation. Engagement with critical issues is essential and must be contextualized. Sharing results of contextualized engagement and innovation supports the field’s collective effort to address education’s most pressing challenges through improvement and innovation.
The program provides evidence* that it:
- Engages with local partners and stakeholders to support high-need schools and participates in efforts to reduce disparities in educational outcomes
- Seeks to meet state and local educator workforce needs and to diversify participation in the educator workforce through candidate recruitment and support
- Supports completers’ entry into and/or continuation in their professional role, as appropriate to the credential or degree being earned
- Investigates available and trustworthy evidence regarding completer placement, effectiveness, and retention in the profession and uses that information to improve programs
- Meets obligations and mandates established by the state, states, or jurisdiction within which it operates
- Investigates its own effectiveness relative to its institutional and/or programmatic mission and commitments
Evidence will address identified issues in light of local and institutional context.
The key question asked by Standard 4:
Is the program engaged in strengthening the education system in conjunction with its stakeholders and in keeping with its institutional mission?
* The lists within each standard specify aspects of the overall evidence package for the standard; each aspect is not a “substandard” to be considered apart from the whole standard. Evidence for each standard is evaluated holistically.