Educator Preparation Programs Report

Educator Preparation Programs (EPP) Dashboard

Overview

The Colorado Educator Preparation Programs Report (EPP Report) provides information about the effectiveness of programs that train teachers, principals and special service providers in our state. Historically, the Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) prepared and released this report. Beginning in the 2019-20 academic year, and as required by a statutory change, C.R.S. 22-2-112(1)(q), an expanded version of the EPP Report featuring an interactive dashboard was developed and released by the Colorado Department of Education (CDE), in collaboration with CDHE, with additional metrics that track new teachers in Colorado's workforce, including employment in Colorado public schools, on-the-job performance and retention of new teachers.  

The report features information about traditional educator preparation programs, which include public and private university programs, and alternative educator preparation programs, which can be run by universities, Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, school districts, schools and other entities. Alternative preparation programs serve educator candidates who already hold a bachelor's degree, but still need coursework and training in education. Beginning in 2023, all EPPs are authorized and overseen by the Colorado State Board of Education and CDE. 

Educator Preparation Programs Report

Detailed information about educator preparation program enrollment, completion and licensure test pass rates as well as employment, employment context, performance and retention rates for new teachers in Colorado for 2015-16 to 2022-2023 academic years, varying by metric, is available in the interactive dashboard. Please note that at this time only alternative EPP data are available for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 academic years. Data from traditional preparation programs for these years are not yet available due to a cybersecurity ransomware incident at the CDHE, impacting CDHE's ability to collect traditional program data for these years. Due to this, statewide totals and state highlights for 2021-22 and 2022-23 must wait until the traditional program data are available. Highlights from 2020-21, the most recent year for which statewide data exist, remain posted below.

Downloadable Excel files through academic year 2020-21 are also available for:

• Enrollment and completer only data (XLS)
• New teacher outcomes state level data (XLS)
• New teacher outcomes program level data (XLS)
• Licensure exam pass rates data (XLS)

Report highlights from 2020-21 (the most recent year for which statewide data are available):

The EPP report containing data spanning the five-year period 2016-17 to 2020-21 is now available. (Please note that the interactive dashboard is not intended to be used on a mobile device.) Highlights include: 

• Overall enrollment in Colorado educator preparation programs decreased 7.1% over the past five years from 11,451 in 2016-17 to 10,643 in 2020-21.
• Colorado’s pool of educators-in-training continues to be predominately white and female. The proportion and total number of enrollees across Colorado identifying as Hispanic have increased from 14.2% (1,627) to 19.0% (2,027) from 2016-17 to 2020-21 and those identifying as two or more races increased from 2.9% (329) to 3.8% (401).
• As in previous years, in 2019-20 alternative licensure programs attracted a relatively high proportion of male candidates: approximately one out of three, or 30.3%, alternative licensure candidates were male compared to one out of five, 20.7%, of traditional route candidates.
• Overall, completion across all educator preparation programs decreased 10.9% from 3,611 in 2016-17 to 3,217 in 2020-21.
• The following patterns were observed for completions in specific statewide teacher shortage areas:
  • In special education, the number of completers has increased substantially during the past five years. In this area, there were 283 completers in 2016-17 and 335 in 2020-21, an increase of 18.4%. A large part of this increase is due to the large special education enrollment in alternative programs where the annual number of completers grew from 83 to 136 during this period.
  • In early childhood education, during this five-year period the number of completers grew from 170 to 188, an increase of 10.6%.
  • In mathematics, the addition of a middle school only endorsement helped to keep the number of completers consistent for several years. However, from 2019-20 to 2020-21 when considering the combination of middle school mathematics and secondary (grades 7 – 12) mathematics together, the overall number of completers decreased from 164 to 133 (19.0%).
• For the 2020-21 cohort, licensure pass rates on the elementary education reading and language arts sub-test was 93.2% overall and 76.8% on first attempt, and on the mathematics sub-test was 2.6% overall and 72.5% For this cohort, on the middle school math test the pass rate was 100% overall and 77.8% on the first attempt, while the secondary math test (covering both middle and high school content) pass rate was 81% overall and 58.2% on the first attempt.
• The in-state placement rate of new teachers was 64.1% for the 2020-21 cohort, which is an increase from 61.9% five years ago, and a slight increase over 2019-20. The in-state placement rate has ranged between 58.1% and 66% over the past five years. Please note that the in-state placement rate only includes those hired at a Colorado public school and is not the same as a total job placement rate because it does not include completers who may be teaching out-of-state or in private settings.
• The largest employers of the 2020-21 cohort of teachers are Denver Public Schools, Jefferson County Public Schools, Douglas County School District and Greeley. In the 2020-21 cohort, these four districts hired one of every five (19.7%) new teachers finishing at Colorado educator preparation programs.
• In the 2020-21 cohort, approximately one third of the new teachers were employed in schools in the highest quartiles for poverty (31.9%), students of color (33.5%) and/or English-language learners (32.4%). This represents a slight decrease over the preceding year in the placement of new teachers in schools with the most at-risk students.
• The report tracks the 2015-16 cohort into their sixth year of teaching. In this cohort’s second year, 2017-18, seven out of 10 (71.6%) teachers continued to teach in the same school, approximately eight out of 10 (78.5%) continued to teach in the same district and nearly nine out of 10 (86.9%) continued to teach in Colorado's public school system. In this cohort’s third year, 2018-19, 54.1% of the cohort continued to teach in the same school, 62.4% continued to teach in the same district, 77% continued to teach in the Colorado public school system and an additional 2.3% who had left the teaching workforce in the prior year returned to it. In this cohort’s fourth year of teaching, 2019-20, 42% were still teaching in the same school, 50.8% continued to teach in the same district, 68% continued to teach in the Colorado public school system and 4.5% who had left the teaching workforce returned to it. In this cohort’s fifth year of teaching, 34.9% continued to teach in the same school, 44.7% continued to teach in the same district, 62.5% continued to teach in Colorado and an additional 5.8% who had left the teaching workforce returned to it. This cohort’s sixth year, 2021-22, marked the largest number of returning educators to date, with 7.1% who had left the teaching workforce returning. In all, just under two-thirds (62.9%) of the 2015-16 cohort were still teaching in Colorado public schools six years later in 2021-22.

The Educator Preparation Program reports issued in 2021-22, 2020-21 and 2019-2020 are available online. To access EPP reports issued prior to 2019-2020, please visit the CDHE's Reports & Publications website and filter by Educator Preparation category. 

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