Quality Assurance Report 1:

Introduction and Overview of the Program and the Study

Prepared in Response to the 2021 AAQEP Guide to Accreditation

Land Acknowledgement: 
The Fresno State campus sits in the midst of the San Joaquin Valley, a valley rich in the traditions and representation of Native American peoples and cultures. We are grateful to be in the traditional homelands of the Yokuts and Mono peoples, whose diverse tribal communities share stewardship over this land. 

Overview: Fresno State
California State University, Fresno (Fresno State), now a public, comprehensive university, was founded as Fresno Normal School in 1911 with the goal of developing teachers. It  joined the California State University system in 1961 and was granted university status in 1972. Its 1,410-acre campus, including the university farm, is located several miles northeast of downtown Fresno. Fresno is located in California’s Central Valley, an agricultural region that produces many of the fruits, vegetables, nuts, and other food eaten across the globe. The area’s strengths are evident in its world famous national parks, fertile literary landscape (including two former poet laureates of the United States), linguistic diversity, and rich cultural traditions and history. 

With an enrollment of over 24,000 students (89% of whom are from the Central Valley), Fresno State offers 59 undergraduate degree programs, 44 master’s degree programs, three doctoral programs, 12 certificates of advanced study, and various credentials. Our alumni become successful teachers, writers, politicians, entertainers, academics, and even the chancellor of the California State University (CSU) system. Fresno State is one of 23 California State University (CSU) campuses. It is designated as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) and as an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI) (See Table 1 for demographics). We are proud to support our large population of first-generation students: Fresno State now boasts more than 14,000 undergraduates (nearly 2 out of 3 undergraduates) who are first-generation college students, drawing from a local demographic where less than 21% of the citizens hold college degrees of any kind. 

In recent years, the university has continued to receive recognition on the national level. For multiple years, Fresno State has placed among the top three best public universities in graduation-rate performance nationwide by U.S. News and World Report. In addition, Fresno State placed No. 2 in the category “Least Percent of Grads with Debt” among public national universities.  Fresno State placed 26th out of 389 public and private colleges on Washington Monthly’s 2020 annual list of top national universities based on social mobility, research, and promoting public service. Money magazine ranked Fresno 40th for "best value" universities in the United States and 7th for most transformative college, describing the university as a school “where students beat the odds by doing better than would be expected from their academic and economic backgrounds.” 

Within the CSU system, Fresno State continues to be among the universities graduating the largest cohort of K-12 educators each year. More than 60% of school leaders in our region have roots in Kremen School of Education and Human Development programs.  

Table 1. Fresno State Enrollment, Fall 2016-2020

Educator Preparation Programs at Fresno State
Educator preparation programs are housed in several colleges at the university,  though all programs are affiliated with the Kremen School of Education and Human Development (Kremen). Kremen’s mission is the recruitment and development of ethically informed leaders for classroom teaching, education administration, counseling, and higher education. We foster the candidate dispositions of collaboration, valuing diversity, critical thinking, ethical judgments, reflection, and life-long learning. The Kremen School theme, "Leadership for Diverse Communities," places considerable emphasis on developing educators who can function effectively as leaders in a culturally and linguistically diverse society. With more than 100 languages spoken in the region, our programs offer diverse field experiences, and our students learn strategies to optimize the education of emergent bilinguals while valuing what all students bring to their educational experiences. Additionally, integration of educational technology and performance assessment is essential to all programs. 

In the past seven years since we went through NCATE/CAEP accreditation, there have been a number of leadership changes, both at the university and within Kremen. Just as examples, since 2014, we have had two presidents and four provosts at the university level; within Kremen, we have had three deans and six associate deans. 

This rapidly changing leadership has contributed to a loss of institutional history leading to a  deterioration of infrastructure within Kremen that we have been working to rebuild. With the appointment of Dr. Saúl Jimenez-Sandoval as President of Fresno State in 2021, Dr. Randy Yerrick as the Kremen School of Education and Human Development Dean and Director of Teacher Education in 2020, and Dr. Jenelle Pitt Parker as Associate Dean in 2021, we are confident that we are now on track to creating a sense of stability within the School. In addition, we’ve been able to appoint Dr. Juliet Wahleithner as our first ever Assistant Director of Teacher Education. Her duties encompass our educator preparation work in addition to providing accreditation oversight and leadership. We’ve also hired a full-time lecturer to serve as Coordinator of the Office of Clinical Practice. These key personnel work together to strengthen all aspects of our programs. Lastly, Interim Provost Fu and Special Assistant to the Provost Alam Hasson are in the process of reconceiving the university’s budget process and have been working to understand Kremen’s needs. We are hopeful that this will result in a budget allocation that meets the needs of our complex college. 

First Graduating Class of Fresno Normal School

Table 2, Educator Preparation Programs at Fresno State¹

_{¹ Of these programs, not all are seeking AAQEP accreditation since many hold national accreditation through other accrediting bodies. The School Social Work/CWA PPS program is part of the 60-unit Masters in Social Work program which is nationally accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), the School Psychology Ed.S. School Psychology Program is fully approved by the National Association of School Psychologists through 2027 under the CAEP umbrella (NASP), the Speech-Language Pathology holds national accreditation from the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association (ASLHA), and the Deaf/HH Education holds national accreditation through the Council of Education of the Deaf (CED). Figure 2 lists those programs seeking AAQEP accreditation.} 

Research Foundation of our Programs
First and foremost, our programs seek to model an asset-based approach (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992) to prepare our future educators, recognizing the wealth of resources all students bring with them to the classroom. We utilize culturally sustaining pedagogy (Hammond, 2015; Ladson-Billings, 2009; Paris & Alim, 2014) in order to build on the cultural resources of our candidates. Our goal is to model using asset-based approaches while educating our candidates about how to use these pedagogies within their own contexts.

In order to guarantee that all of our candidates have access to and can participate in meaningful and challenging learning opportunities, we also utilize Universal Design for Learning (CAST, 2021). We recognize that our students need opportunities to demonstrate their developing knowledge and understanding in ways that are appropriate and meaningful to them—and that their students need opportunities to do the same.

Our program also recognizes that education does not happen in a vacuum and that, to truly understand the link between the theories they are learning in their coursework and the application of those theories in practice, candidates benefit from opportunities to apply their new learning in authentic contexts. For this reason, our programs rely heavily on field-based experiences, where candidates are supported by both mentors in the field and university-based coaches. This emphasis on field experience has also led us to develop residency programs in our Basic Credential programs. Our Teacher Residency programs include 1) field-based experiences that emphasize competency-based assessments aligned to district and/or state measures, 2) include theory-to-practice connections in coursework with opportunities for simulations and rehearsals of skills, and 3) authentic and substantive collaborations built on mutual trust with local schools and school districts (National Center for Teacher Residencies, 2015). See further information about our residency programs in the Key Partnerships section. 

At the heart of everything we do is a culture of inquiry (Darling-Hammond, Hammerness, Grossman, Rust, & Shulman, 2005), in which we encourage candidates to collect data on their practice, analyze that data in meaningful ways, and use the findings to inform the work they do. Ultimately, our goal is to prepare educators who are reflective practitioners, committed to improving their practice in order to improve the educational opportunities for all students in our region.

Programs Included in Quality Assurance Report 1
This Quality Assurance Report (QAR) is one of two we are submitting, focusing on programs that are considered to be Basic/Initial Credentials by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. While the Advanced Credentials prepare personnel for work in administrative and support roles, Basic Credential programs prepare teacher candidates seeking entrance into the profession. The programs included within this QAR are the Multiple Subject Credential, the Single Subject Credential, the Education Specialist Credential, the Agriculture Specialist Credential, and the Bilingual Authorization Program Credential. 

Table 3, Program Specification Table for AAQEP Accreditation

Overview of Basic/Initial Credential Programs

• The Multiple Subject (MS) program (see full description) prepares students to teach in elementary schools. Prospective students usually major in Liberal Studies as an undergraduate and then enter the MS program as a post-baccalaureate student. Some students gain “subject matter competency” through taking the California Subject Examinations for Teachers (CSET), but many of our students go through our undergraduate program which provides a waiver for the CSET. 
• The Bilingual Authorization Program (BAP) (see full description) is an add-on credential to the Multiple Subject credential. Prospective students are recruited in both our undergraduate and post-bac programs since students can take some of the additional coursework before entering the credential program. Students can opt to focus on either Spanish or Hmong authorizations as there is a high need for both in our service area. The BAP authorization is also a credential that teachers can pursue after they have completed their credentials. This program has new leadership with focused plans on recruitment and program expansion. The small size of the program in years past means that there isn’t always a lot of data available, especially since students in this program also pursue a MS credential. Still, because of the importance of this program and our goal to increase its size, we’ve decided to isolate it in its own section, using the data that is available. At times, we may refer the reader to the MS program data. Our future plan is to collect disaggregated data to better measure the work we’re doing with what we hope is increasing enrollment in this program. 
• The Single Subject Program (SS) (see full description) prepares teachers for secondary teaching in specific subject areas. Our university offers SS credentials in the following areas:
  
  • Agriculture
  • Art
  • Biology
  • Chemistry
  • English
  • French
  • Geological Science
  • Industrial Technology (currently on hiatus)
  • Mathematics
  • Music
  • Physical Education
  • Physics
  • Social Science
  • Spanish

Students establish Subject Matter Competency through coursework and/or the CSET, then enroll in the SS credential program. 

• The post-baccalaureate (fifth-year) program for Agricultural Education Teacher Preparation is structured so candidates, with a combination of undergraduate and graduate professional education course work, will concurrently fulfill the requirements for the Single Subject, Agriculture and Agriculture Specialist Credentials (see full description).
• The Special Education Program (SPED or ES) at California State University, Fresno offers the basic Preliminary Education Specialist Credential in grades Kindergarten-age 22 (adult). The Preliminary Education Specialist Credential has two areas of specialization, Mild/Moderate (M/M) and Moderate/Severe (M/S) (see full description).  

All these programs prepare candidates to earn the preliminary credential needed in order to teach in California schools. They also share an assessment tool, the Fresno Assessment of Student Teachers [FAST], a Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA) system designed for exclusive use at California State University, Fresno. Teacher candidates in Single Subject, Ag Specialist, Multiple Subject, BAP and Dual credential programs are assessed using FAST to demonstrate their mastery of the California Teacher Performance Expectations (TPEs). The Ed Specialist program is currently being revised and will likely include FAST assessment as well. FAST ensures that all credential candidates meet the six TPE’s mandated by the State of California through two assessments: 

• Site Visitation Project - This task assesses the candidate’s ability to perform, document, and reflect upon his/her own instruction. This is a field-based assessment. It assesses the following TPEs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, and takes place in the first semester of the program as part of initial student teaching.
• Teaching Sample Project - This task assesses the candidates' ability to plan and teach a one- to four -week unit, to assess student learning related to the unit, and to document their teaching and their students’ learning. This is a comprehensive, written assessment. It assesses the following TPEs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, and takes place during the second semester of the program as part of final student teaching.

This assessment is authorized for use by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CCTC). The FAST coordinator is currently one of our coaches who was a school administrator with experience in assessment. She updates faculty when needed, keeps data on student performance, trains those who assess the FAST through norming sessions, and otherwise maintains the quality of assessment data. In addition, one of our professors whose expertise is in educational research creates a psychometric report every two years. We submit all data regularly to the CCTC in order to receive authorization to continue use of the FAST as our teaching performance assessment. 

The second QAR will focus on programs that provide additional training to earn what California calls an Advanced Credential. Although the Ag Specialist credential also fits into this category, it is combined with the preliminary credential at our university, thus we decided to include it in this QAR. These programs are designed around specific California Commission on Teacher Credentialing expectations and standards and undergo regular review by the Commission. 

Key Partnerships with Schools
Kremen is known for its active and long-term partnerships with more than three dozen districts. One of the primary ways we have responded to the calls for improving teacher education is through the establishment of Teacher Residency Programs in districts throughout the region (Fresno, Clovis, Sanger, and Madera, and soon to be added a rural residency initiative), work that has been highlighted in a publication by the Learning Policy Institute and other leading educational agencies. Additionally, the National Center of Teacher Residencies recognized Francisco Barajas as a Resident of the Year in July 2020.

Teacher Residencies:
First and foremost, Kremen’s Teacher Residency Programs are site-accommodating and district-serving teacher education programs that value apprenticeship practices involving mentors (teachers) and coaches (university) in specifically designed events and reflection to foster novice teacher incorporation of culturally responsive practices. Building on the medical residency model, residents learn the underlying theory of effective teaching. They then have the opportunity to put that theory into practice through a year-long, in-school “residency,” in which they practice and hone their skills and knowledge alongside an effective teacher-mentor in “collaboration with university coaches. Kremen resident students spend the full academic year in a district school, developing under the guidance of an experienced mentor teacher and the shared supervision with a university coach. 

Our residencies continue to evolve in their structure, responding to guidelines established by the National Center for Teacher Residencies (NCTR), of which Kremen is a member institution. The NCTR guidelines include providing 1) Targeted recruitment and selection of residents; 2) Rigorous selection and support of teacher mentors; 3) Intensive pre-service preparation within a culturally responsive program focused on the specific needs of teachers; 4) Aligned induction support; and a shared goal of eventual 5) Strategic hiring of graduates. 

Impact of Teacher Residencies:
Over the past seven years the enrollment of candidates in our Teacher Residency programs has grown from 20 residents with one district partner to that of 149 residents with four district partners. Given national trends in teacher attrition, the employment rates of our Teacher Residency graduates are impressive. 

• Fresno Teacher Residency Program (FRTP): Our most long standing residency program is with Fresno Unified School District. This residency has offered options in Multiple Subject, Dual (Multiple Subject and Education Specialist), and Single Subject with a focus on Math, Science, and industrial technology (especially computer science). Overall, 220 Fresno Teacher Residency Program Graduates over the past seven years are still employed with the district. The program boasts a 94% 1-year retention rate, and an 81% 3-year retention rate compared to 33% nationally (Carver-Thomas & Darling-Hammond, 2017; Garcia & Weiss, 2019). Additionally seven residents moved into leadership roles in the district. According to the Learning Policy Institute’s Teacher Turnover Calculator, the residency graduates' high retention rates have the potential of saving a school district like Fresno Unified 1.1 million dollars each year. 
• Sanger Unified Teacher Residency: This residency integrates Universal Design for Learning (UDL), incorporating knowledge about how brains learn to design and build engaging learning environments. Teacher residents are provided the same training as first-year teachers at the school district. From our Sanger Unified Teacher Residency Program, 49 graduates over the past three years are still employed within SUSD as teachers, for an 88% 1-year retention rate and an 87% 3-year retention rate. According to one of the associate superintendents in the district, “The residency model sets our district up to hire well-prepared teachers that embody our goals, beliefs, and culture for years to come.” 
• Bilingual Authorization Teacher Residency: Our Madera County residency is specifically fostering dual immersion and bilingual education in partnership with our status as an Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI).  As an HSI we hold a particularly special responsibility to foster university programming and student outreach to increase our support to students in districts with high Spanish speaking student populations. Through this residency we can directly impact the student learning in this district by providing pedagogical transformation and community level support. There has been a significant impact on the cultural context at this residency site as demonstrated by the newsletter, meetings agendas, and the media produced from the partnership. The following topics have been collected from these sources which demonstrate the various levels of impact on the learning context and student learning directly:
  
  • Dialogue about pandemic conditions, safety, and protocols (Audience: K-12 students, Teacher residents, Mentor teachers, and Coaches). 
  • Anti-racist pedagogy webinars and creating teacher learning communities for culturally responsive teaching.
  • Parenting and supporting children’s learning environment at home during the pandemic  
  • Safety and social gatherings for the holiday season 
  • School re-openings and safety for teachers and students
  • Impacting students learning: Research and resources including tablets and cameras.
  • Leveraging asynchronous learning opportunities at school and at home 
  • Wildfire impact responses: University Student Resources available through the Good Samaritan fund, Project Hope, Fresno State food pantry, and parent support for diapers and formula
  • Bilingual and culturally responsive reading resources for teachers and students.
  • Interventions for STEM and Math professional development 
• Education Specialist Teacher Residency: Another example of the way in which Kremen is using the Teacher Residency model to respond to the areas of teacher need is our Special Education cohort in Clovis, which also includes a focus on culturally responsive pedagogy. The ES residency at Clovis Unified and Dual Credential Programs (Multiple Subject / ES) residencies were established to support the need for Education Specialists in the local area. As is the case statewide, our region currently has a high rate of special educators serving students with specific learning and behavioral needs under provisional (i.e., temporary) credentials. In order to support both teachers and student teachers in the community, the Special Education residencies help to address this need by offering stipends for tuition in return for a commitment to teaching service. Coursework in the program provides opportunities for candidates to identify issues and problems within the context of their current placements/job sites and seek solutions to those issues/problems within their placement/job sites to improve student learning and outcomes in local schools. 
• Rural Residency Initiative:  Keeping aligned with our mission to “educate leaders for participation in a diverse society,” we have begun efforts to place students more intentionally into communities of high need or those too often underrepresented by the standard teacher candidate. There exists such a high demand for teachers in the Central Valley that rural communities are often not able to recruit Kremen graduates to accept jobs in outlying, small, agrarian communities. Our largest school districts host hiring events and often get the first pick of graduates, often leaving rural districts to hire temporary or out-of-state candidates who may not know the region or the high commitment to culturally responsive teaching approaches. To that end, Kremen is launching in the 2021-2022 academic year a rural residency initiative serving four partner rural districts. Kremen faculty have collaborated with the Fresno County Office of Education to reach rural and underserved schools to offer virtual and face-to-face instruction, stipends for residents, coaching and mentoring for faculty and students, as well as a promise of a “first look” as a prospective teacher candidate upon completion of the program.  Funded in part by the generous contributions of four districts, this residency initiative is an example of the legacy of Kremen to provide high impact practices through our partnership as well as a clear fulfillment of the commitment to equity Kremen demonstrates throughout the region.
• In addition to our residency programs, now in its third graduation cohort, the South Valley Integrated Teacher Education Program (ITEP) combines undergraduate Liberal Studies degree requirements with credential program requirements, allowing students to finish both programs in four years, two in a community college and two at Fresno State’s Visalia campus. ITEP is a direct response to local and distant educational leaders working with Kremen leadership to establish pipelines of teachers, counselors and educational leaders to regions where they are needed most. 

Many of these partner relationships were initiated and sustained through the regular meeting of Kremen Deans, Associate Deans, and Chairs strategizing new ways to meet the educational needs of the Valley.  

Overview of Self-Study 
As this is our first AAQEP review, we viewed this self-study as an opportunity to establish a baseline portrait of where our programs currently are in relation to the AAQEP Standards and Aspects. Our rationale behind this was that, by establishing a baseline, we would have a solid understanding of where to begin our cycles of continuous improvement as we continue to move forward in our journey. 

In order to make the self-study process authentic and meaningful for program faculty, we allowed each program to select its own data sources. Faculty members then worked together to identify what success looked like on each measure and then to engage in an analysis of the data. The tables below present the Aspect Evidence Index, which lists the specific data sources used by each program to respond to the aspects included in Standards 1 and 2. Based on the findings from the analyses of those data sources, faculty then worked together to draw conclusions and articulate next steps. These processes are documented within each program’s response to each standard aspect.  We then looked across their findings to select priority areas for the educational unit as a whole.

While program faculty collaborated to engage in the self-study process, within each program, specific faculty members took the lead on constructing responses:

• The Multiple Subject (MS) program: Dr. Heather Horsley, the program coordinator for the MS program took the lead on this section with the help of program faculty such as Dr. Monica Billen, Dr. Steven Hart, Dr. Jose Lomeli, Melanie Wenrick, Christina Macias, and Suzanne Brandl.
• The Bilingual Authorization Program (BAP): Dr. Ana Soltero-Lopez, coordinator of the BAP program, took the lead on this part of the QAR. 
• The Preliminary Education Specialist Credential (ES): Professor Cheryl McDonald, the SPED coordinator, was assisted by program faculty Dr. Michael Mahoney, Dr. Bill Garnett, Dr. Kimberly Coy, Dr. Kristina Rios, and Dr. Christina Bosch on the documentation for this program. 
• The Single Subject Program (SS): Dr. Imelda Basurto, the SS Program Coordinator, was assisted by program faculty Dr. Earl Aguilera, Dr. David Low, Dr. Rohit Mehta, Dr. Kat Biacindo, and Dr. Bill Garnett. 
• Agriculture Specialist Credential (AS): Dr. Rosco Vaughn, the coordinator of the Agriculture Education program, and Dr. Steve Rocca worked together on this part of QAR #1. 

For each Standard, we present an introduction that details key information about how the responses to the standard were constructed, including data sources used. We then present each program’s response to each aspect of the standard. At the end of each Standard, we present a conclusion and next steps that synthesize the findings from across the programs, highlighting the strengths and areas for growth. Additionally, we include the identified priority areas for each program in response to the standard, along with the specific steps the program will take to address those priority areas.

We believe it is important to acknowledge the timeline in which we undertook this self-study. Fresno State joined AAQEP in Winter 2020, just prior to the onset of the global pandemic. At the time, Kremen was also undergoing a significant leadership change. The former dean, who had served in the position on an interim basis since Fall 2018 and who had led the initiative to transition to work with AAQEP,  announced she had accepted a position at another institution. Additionally, Dr. Kathleen Godfrey, a professor from the English department, was in her first of two years as the Interim Associate Dean. Though campus was shut down and meetings were now held virtually, discussions did begin about what would be required for AAQEP accreditation. However, the first set of three major deadlines for accreditation by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (Preconditions, Program Standards Review, and Common Standards Review) was looming, and completing that work became the focus. 

In Fall 2020, with Dean Randy Yerrick now leading Kremen, the decision to pursue AAQEP accreditation became finalized. The work on the AAQEP Proposal began, but programs continued to focus on preparing their documentation for the CCTC Program Standards Review submission (CCTC Program Review responses). When that work was completed, we then began preparing responses to the CCTC Common Standards, which were due March 1, 2021. It was at that point that we could truly begin to embark on our AAQEP journey, at a time when our faculty were already fatigued after a year like no other. 

Overall, the process of engaging in this self-study has yielded important information for our individual programs and our educational unit as a whole, allowing us to highlight our areas of strength as well as the opportunity to look at data in new ways to uncover areas to improve so that we can better fulfill our mission of preparing educational leaders who will serve the students of our region.

Table 4
Aspect-Evidence Index to the Quality Assurance Report 

• Multiple Subject
• Bilingual Authorization
• Single Subject
• Agriculture Specialist
• Education Specialist

Description and Program of Study for Each Program

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