Access and Relationships: Investigating What Predicts Student Teaching With a Highly Effective Teacher

We link student teaching placement and K-12 administrative data from North Carolina to better understand the contexts in which educator preparation programs (EPPs) and K-12 districts make placements and the factors that predict whether EPPs and districts make placements with a highly effective teacher. Our work builds on two key findings from prior literature—cooperating teachers (CTs) are critically important to the development of preservice teachers (PSTs) and information asymmetries between EPPs and districts complicate the placement process. We find that there is significant variation across EPPs in their access to highly effective teachers and that there are opportunities to place many more PSTs with a highly effective teacher. Multiple measures of prior relationships, such as the EPP having recently placed with the CT and the CT being an alumnus of the EPP, predict the likelihood of EPPs and districts placing with a highly effective teacher.