NCTQ's Narrative Evaluation Academy for Urban School Leadership How we look independent providers with traditional education school partners For the Illinois review, NCTQ classified the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) as an "independent provider with a traditional education school partner" and evaluated it separately from traditional pre-service programs. Although successful program completers do receive a master's degree from one of two traditional pre-service partners, the fact that this year-long program is dominated by a residency program makes it fundamentally different in design and scope from a traditional pre-teaching program. This hybrid approach to teacher preparation should not be expected to replicate the design of a traditional program, but it should, at a minimum, ensure that its program provides adequate coverage of the essential skills and knowledge needed for the classroom that will not be gained from the residency experience. To the extent possible, NCTQ examined this type of independent provider program against the same standards applied to traditional programs, with the understanding that for some standards the responsibility of the independent provider is direct and for some, it is indirect because it is based on the selection of the traditional education school partner. For example, responsibility for admission lies directly with the independent provider, but responsibility for the instruction on teaching reading lies only indirectly with the independent provider because the provider is not providing that instruction, but has selected the education school which will do so.
Academy for Urban School Leadership Strengths of the Academy for Urban School Leadership AUSL is directly responsible for at least 14 aspects of teacher preparation covered in our standards. AUSL deserves recognition for its dedication to providing meaningful residency experiences: 
While AUSL does not have any entrance criteria ensuring that only those who are at or above the 50th percentile of the college-going population are admitted (Standard 1), criteria best suited to programs that do not rely so heavily on those entering teaching in mid-career, it does have a highly competitive admission process and selects only a small minority of applicants. In combination with the fact that only those residents demonstrating competency continue in the program, the admissions process indicates
that AUSL attempts to ensure that residents are capable of meeting the demands of teaching.
AUSL has a strong model that begins with early exposure to field work and requires students to participate in field work throughout their year-long residencies (Standard 12).
AUSL ensures that all teacher candidates can fully dedicate themselves to the important task and challenge of apprentice teaching while engaged in coursework in a manner that does not create distraction (Standard 13).
In addition, AUSL makes certain that its teacher candidates have residency experiences that are well-aligned with the design of their preparation program and their instructional expectations (Standard 14).
AUSL should be commended for its efficient programs of study. The number of semester hours necessary to complete the professional sequence is within acceptable bounds: The elementary program requires 34 hours of professional coursework, while the secondary program requires 30 hours (Standard 22).
Areas of concern that should be addressed by the Academy for Urban School Leadership AUSL is an exemplar in many areas. However, there are also areas of weakness that AUSL has direct control over and should address in order to be an even more effective independent provider. For example, AUSL must improve its requirements for subject area preparation.
Currently, neither AUSL nor National-Louis can ensures that teacher candidates receive sufficient coverage in the content early childhood and elementary teachers need (Standard 27).
AUSL currently allows middle school teachers to gain certification in areas in which they do not have majors or minors or pass an appropriate test (Standard 16).
AUSL does not ensure that the academic major required of high school teacher candidates is equivalent in rigor to that of non-education majors. While most of the course requirements in the certification areas for secondary teachers appear to be sound, AUSL only partially addresses the issue of inadequate requirements for the undergraduate preparation of secondary teacher candidates in science and social science. Acknowledging that flawed state regulations are the principal culprit across the state, it is still incumbent upon the institution to require that its graduates take enough
coursework in these broad subject areas to achieve some minimal level of competence or pass an appropriate test (Standard 33).
Given the inadequacy of state licensure tests for elementary teachers and for secondary science and social science teachers, AUSL should ensure that its candidates in those areas pass appropriate exit assessments in each subject and it does not do so.
Finally, while we presume that the institution obtains information on the performance and effectiveness of its graduates’ from the institution’s own “turn-around” schools in which they are exclusively employed, only documentation on retention of graduates has been provided (Standards 24 and 25). National-Louis University: Strengths of AUSL’s partner National-Louis University is one of two traditional education schools selected by AUSL to provide coursework to its residents and it does so for about 95 percent of residents. Coursework provided by National-Louis was evaluated for AUSL’s ratings on approximately 20 standards. National-Louis was found to be particularly strong in the following areas:
National-Louis has a number of courses that address teaching strategies and methodology. Of those courses reviewed, most had one or more assignments requiring teacher candidates to plan instruction around the K-9 Illinois State Learning Standards (Standard 5). In addition, National-Louis does a good job of providing a fairly thorough overview of all types of classroom assessments (including teaching candidates to analyze student data) at the secondary level (Standard 18).
All required courses at National-Louis are offered at least once each year to make it possible for teacher candidates to complete the program in a timely fashion (Standard 23).
National-Louis provides appropriate methods in the content areas. It requires methods courses specific to subject areas for all secondary candidates (Standard 34). At the elementary level, coursework related to elementary science, social studies, and language arts cover components of effective instruction and teaching strategies (Standard 31).
Areas for improvement of AUSL's partner Coursework at National-Louis should be commended for its many strengths. However, like AUSL, there are several areas in which National-Louis could improve its program to better serve its teacher candidates and their future students. Reading preparation in particular needs to be improved.
Elementary residents take two courses on reading instruction, each covering only one of the two components of effective reading instruction (phonics or comprehension), but which do not address phonemic awareness, fluency, or vocabulary (Standard 28A and 28B).
The assignments from at least some National-Louis’s coursework do not appear to reflect a seriousness of purpose and mastery of course content (Standard 2). In addition, none of the reviewed courses addressing teacher strategies contained any assignments or lectures on planning instruction that addresses the needs of English language learners (Standard 6).
Only a minority of reviewed courses addressed teaching strategies that required teacher candidates to plan instruction with technology applications (Standard 8).
Teacher candidates are not required to take any coursework that is designed to develop their conceptual understanding of elementary mathematics topics, and even in the course that addresses mathematic teaching strategies, the topic is not addressed in sufficient depth (Standards 29 and 30).
While National-Louis has established a coherent design for instruction on classroom management and special education, it is unfortunately not targeted to specific grade-levels (Standards 20 and 21).
All education programs should mirror the level of scholarship practiced in other fields. One way to do this is to prevent faculty members from teaching multiple disparate disciplines. However, National-Louis does not appear to respect the scholarship of its faculty, assigning instructors to teach coursework in disparate fields of study, such as courses in foundations of education, methods, and educational psychology (Standard 26).
Though an exemplar in preparing secondary candidates to understand and analyze student data, National-Louis fails to do the same for its elementary candidates (Standard 17).