The MSU Teacher Preparation Program’s goal is to prepare justice-oriented professionals who are ready to teach on Day 1.
We test these ambitions against the data we collect. We update these sources regularly and pursue new ways to understand how well our program is working. We encourage you to browse the information we have compiled below in our effort to put ongoing improvement at the heart of our work.
List of Accredited Program Areas at MSU
1. Completer Effectiveness
In November 2015, Public Act 173 was signed into law in Michigan. This legislation governs educator evaluations for teachers (MCL 380.1249) and administrators (MCL 380.1249b). MCL 380.1249 requires the board of a school district to adopt and implement for all teachers and administrators a rigorous, transparent, and fair performance evaluation system that does all of the following:
- Evaluates the teacher’s or administrator’s job performance at least
annually while providing timely and constructive feedback. - Establishes clear approaches to measuring student growth and provides
teachers and administrators with relevant data on student growth. - Evaluates a teacher’s or administrator’s job performance, using multiple
rating categories that take into account data on student growth. - Uses the evaluations to inform decisions regarding the effectiveness of
teachers and administrators; promotion, retention, and development of
teachers and administrators; whether to grant tenure or full certification;
and the removal of ineffective tenured and untenured teachers and
administrators.
How have MSU-prepared teachers done on these evaluations? Across a five-year span from 2019-20234, over 2,000 evaluations were done of early-career Spartan educators across the state. This table shows that more than 98% of our teachers are rated “highly effective” or “effective” during their first years in the classroom. About 26% of our teachers are rated “highly effective” by their second year in the classroom. By year four, over 46% of MSU teachers are rated as “highly effective.”
2. Employer Satisfaction and Stakeholder Involvement
Employer Satisfaction
The Michigan Department of Education developed an Administrator Survey during the 2020-2021 academic year. This survey is distributed to the lead administrator of Michigan school buildings where new teachers are working and asks them about the performance of their new hire. These results show just how well MSU-prepared teachers are doing.
As this table demonstrates, MSU-prepared teachers outperform state-wide averages in nearly every category. Particular strengths of MSU-prepared teachers include the ability to “organize the learning environment to guide student engagement during instructional time” and the ability to “demonstrate responsiveness and flexibility to unexpected situations which arise.” MSU teachers were also said to be excellent with both English-language learners and high-performing students! Comments from principals can be read at the end of the table, but include such statements as “best new hire I’ve ever made” and “up there with the most well-rounded first-year teachers I have ever worked with.”
In short, MSU teachers are deeply thoughtful and reflective practitioners who seek to meet the needs of all students.
Stakeholder Involvement
The governance and structure of our teacher preparation program is evolving as we seek to meet the needs of our many stakeholders. During the summer of 2023, we hired a Director of Educator Preparation and Accreditation, Dr. Lara Dixon. Dr. Dixon will ensure that our programs at both the initial and advanced level are well coordinated and use data to drive improvement.
At the heart of our EPP governance model is our Educator Preparation Program Advisory Group. This group brings together MSU leadership, alumni, PK-12 superintendents and state business leaders. We are working to create a robust group that will help us create “mutually beneficial PK-12 school and community arrangements for clinical preparation and share responsibility for continuous improvement of candidate preparation.” During the 2024-2025, this group met on December 2, 2024 and May 15, 2025.
3. Candidate Competency at the Time of Program Completion
Completer Survey Data
As this table shows, nearly all of our program graduates feel like they are ready to succeed in the classroom. One year later, 80% of those graduates still felt like they were well prepared to succeed in the profession. Closing the gap between perception at completion and perception one year in is an important goal for our program.
What sets Spartan educators apart is our work in supporting all learners. This is born out in the data, as at one year out, Spartan educators felt more prepared in “meeting student needs” and “instructional strategies and assessments” than did educators prepared at other institutions.
One more thing really stands out about this data. 75% of Spartan educators felt satisfied with the career supports they received while at MSU. This compares to a state-wide average of 57%. This shows the commitment of advisors, placement coordinators, instructors, and program leadership to student success.
Michigan Test of Teacher Certification (MTTC) Results
Candidates in teacher preparation programs are required by Michigan state law to pass the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification (MTTC) in the area(s) relevant to their certification. This ensures that all teachers know the content that they will be asked to teach PK-12 students.
As this table shows, MSU-prepared teacher candidates consistently outperform their peers at other Michigan institutions on these exams (on average, with cumulative pass rates nearly 6% higher). We particularly excel across our secondary programs (English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies). Elementary Mathematics is another area in which Spartan educators excel. In many of these areas, our MTTC scores outpace the statewide average by more than 10 percentage points!
Program Exit Data
In order to define exit standards for our program, we developed the Assessment of Progress (AoP). Teacher candidates must demonstrate mastery of the eighteen core teaching practices as defined by the state of Michigan.
The elements are grouped in the tool into four sections: Professional Responsibility, The Learner and Learning, Content Knowledge, and Instructional Practice (subdivided into Assessments, Planning, and Instruction). The available performance levels are Target Proficiency (3), Intermediate Proficiency (2), and Emerging Proficiency (1).
In all program areas, the AoP rubric is completed independently by the intern, their mentor teacher, and their field instructor, followed by an AoP conference at which the three members of the triad
share their individual responses and determine a consensus score, which is submitted
by the field instructor on behalf of the triad. This assessment process is completed
four times during the internship year.
This table shows the mean exit score for each AoP item by licensure area. It also shows overall average AoP score by race and ethnicity.
Intercultural Developmental Inventory Data
Intercultural competence is the capability to shift cultural perspective and appropriately adapt behavior to cultural differences and commonalities. We use the Intercultural Developmental Inventory (IDI) to understand the intercultural competence of our teacher candidates and how it has grown over their time in our program.
This table shows how our most recent cohort scored at program entry (as juniors) and at program exit (as fifth-year student teaching interns). Candidates in each licensure area demonstrated increased intercultural competence over time. We are interested in continuing to study these results in order to understand how we can support teacher candidates who might struggle in this area.
4. Ability of Completers to Be Hired in the Positions for Which They Were Prepared
As this table shows, the job market for teachers continues to be very hot. A decade ago, most of our program graduates needed to leave Michigan in order to find jobs. These days, our graduates have many more options–and a lot more of them are choosing to stay in Michigan (68%, in fact). What’s more, the average starting salary for a MSU-prepared educator was 14% higher in the spring of 2024 than in the spring of 2019.
Where are MSU-prepared teachers working? With our program’s commitment to social justice, we hope that many Spartan educators will go where the need is the greatest. In 2021, we discovered that around 28% of our completers ended up in economically-disadvantaged (ED) school districts. In 2024, that number had risen to 36.9%. And the districts hiring the largest number of our completers? Lansing, Chicago, and Detroit!
More Information on Placement Patterns and Salary Information
5. Racial Diversity of Entering Cohorts and Completers
Like most other teacher preparation programs, the number of candidates who enroll in and complete our programs has decreased drastically over the past decade. We need to do a better job of supporting our candidates throughout their time in our program–from when they first walk onto campus until the time they leave us as certified teachers.
We are extremely confident that those candidates who leave our program and enter the classroom are skilled professionals. They are highly satisfied with their course of preparation here at MSU.
But we think we can do better–at recruitment, at retention, and at better understanding the experiences of diverse groups of students as they make their way through the MSU Teacher Preparation Program. In September of 2021, we set a goal that 20% of our completers would be Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) by 2030. You can read about these efforts in this report.
In this table, we detail the number of completers in each licensure area and our progress towards our goals of achieving greater racial equity. In this table, we take a snapshot of enrollment trends at various points in our program.
6. Cost of Attendance
University Tuition
The cost of in-state, undergraduate tuition has risen by approximately 11% across the past half decade.
Because of the rising cost of tuition, concern over student debt, and the on-going teacher shortage, our program is committed to reducing the cost of teacher certification. In late 2022, we announced that our program will now offer a four-year pathway to teacher certification, eliminating the nearly $40,000 cost of the fifth-year internship. In 2024-2025, our first cohort of completers in this new four-year pathway was certified and entered the job market.
In addition, the state of Michigan is now offering teacher candidates support in the form of a stipend for student teaching and a fellowship to offset the cost of university tuition.
In short, the financial incentives and supports for becoming a teacher in the state of Michigan have never been better!
| Year | University Cost of Attendance |
|---|---|
| 2024-2025 | $35,888 (in-state tuition: $16,188) |
| 2023-2024 | $32,731 (in-state tuition: $15,648) |
| 2022-2023 | $31,054 (in-state tuition: $15,192) |
| 2021-2022 | $29,898 (in-state tuition: $14,750) |
| 2020-2021 | $29,294 (in-state tuition: $14,460) |
| 2019-2020 | $29,220 (in-state tuition: $14,460) |
| 2018-2019 | $28,924 (in-state tuition: $14,460) |
To learn more about cost and aid, visit https://admissions.msu.edu/cost-aid.
Licensure and Testing Fees in Michigan
Michigan Compiled Law (MCL 380.1538) authorizes the Michigan Department of Education to
collect fees for teacher licensure applications. The current cost of a Provisional Teaching Certificate is $160 for in-state applicants, and $210 for out-of-state applicants. Applications for additional endorsements cost $50. See this MDE document for more information.
Candidates in teacher preparation programs are required by Michigan state law to pass the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification (MTTC) in the area(s) relevant to their certification. For secondary teacher candidates, the cost of that exam is currently $129 (per test, per attempt). For students seeking elementary teacher certification, there are four subtests that candidates must pass that total $246 (see more information from the state of Michigan here).
Starting in 2023-2024, the state of Michigan is reimbursing teacher candidates the cost for their first attempt at the exam (see more information here).