Standard 4 Aspect F

Standard 4: Evidence for this standard will address identified issues in light of local and institutional context. The program provides evidence that it:

4f. Investigates its own effectiveness relative to its institutional and/or programmatic mission and commitments

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Overview of Institutional and Programmatic Mission and Commitments:
Graduates earning the CTC accredited and aligned Preliminary Administrative Services Credential are authorized to serve in administrative roles in California K-12 public schools such as principal, vice-principal, program director, and any related administrative assignment at all school levels. The K-12 pathway program is offered through a 3 semester, 18-month cohort delivery model with an intern option as part of the cohort model for eligible students. The intern option is for those candidates accepted into the PASC program with a contract from a school district to begin work as a school administrator. Cohorts are in partnership with school districts throughout the Central Valley. Coursework and course-embedded fieldwork experiences in partnership school districts are based on standards adopted by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) and California Administrator Performance Expectations (CAPEs). 

The Fresno State PASC program mission, vision, and values are as follows: 

The Educational Leadership and Administration Program develops multi-faceted scholar-practitioners and prepares ethical and resilient leaders in education committed to advocating for equity, social justice, and excellence in educational leadership for K-12 throughout California.

As a guide for our work, we regularly reference the CAPEs (2017) preamble, as follows, which is also found in our handbook and orientation materials: 

Effective educational leaders strive for equity of educational opportunity and culturally responsive practices to promote each student’s academic success and well-being. California leaders recognize, respect, and employ each student’s strengths, experiences, and culture as assets for teaching and learning. Effective educational leaders confront and alter institutional biases of student marginalization, deficit-based schooling, and low expectations associated with race, class, culture and language, gender and sexual orientation, and disability or special status to support the learning of every child. (p. 2)

As available for review through the links in the table below, the Fresno State PASC program’s mission, vision, and values align, not only with the CTC and the CAPEs, but also with the institution, school and department. Specifically, there is alignment through a focus on education and leading schools for social justice, develop culturally sustaining and responsive practices, and support critical thinking through theory and into practice. The overarching goal is to make a difference in our communities through positive impacts to local and regional public schools. 

Description of Collection, Analysis, and Use of Evidence to Ensure Institutional and Programmatic Alignment 

The FS PASC program currently collects data from multiple points in the program including:

• Advancement to Candidacy
• California Administrator Performance Assessment (CalAPA)
• Cohort well-being and needs check-in surveys 
• Completer progress beyond program, CASC employer data
• Course grades and competency tasks scores
• CTC Completer Survey 
• Equity-Driven Leadership Index 
• Graduate Core Competency
• P12 PASC CAPEs and AAQEP candidate self-assessment
• Prospective student and admissions information

As a program, we most recently analyzed data to determine where and how the program was meeting the university and college mission and vision in order to undergo the process of elevating to a stand-alone master’s program, which was approved to begin Fall 2021.  In this elevation process, program faculty determine how the program aligns with institutional missions and developed their own updated programmatic vision, mission, and values. Following this, the program leveraged the opportunity to develop a redesigned and more aligned program course structure and sequence, approved for Fall 2021 start. By developing our own programmatic mission, and redesigned program with increased alignment to the department, school, institution and state goals, the program can now the data points noted above to specifically investigate how effective our program is at meeting our program goals as well as the institutional goals. See the link to the PASC program mission and vision design folder.

Preparing Equity-Driven Leaders:
As presented in the vision statement, the FS PASC program develops multi-faceted scholar-practitioners and prepares ethical and resilient leaders in education committed to advocating for equity, social justice and excellence in educational leadership P12 throughout the region and, with the addition of the online cohort, throughout California.

The redesigned program orientation is framed by Equity-Driven school leadership dispositions specifically as outlined in the CTC preamble to the CAPEs as bulleted below: 

• Effective educational leaders strive for educational opportunities that are driven by equity and culturally responsive practices to promote each student’s academic success and well-being. 
• California leaders recognize, respect, and utilize each student’s strengths, experiences, and background as assets for teaching and learning. 
• Effective educational leaders confront and alter institutional biases of student marginalization, deficit-based schooling, and low expectations. 

To better understand the professional growth and development as aspiring school leaders centered on equity for school improvement, the candidates now participate in a 10-item self-report index, The Equity-Driven Leadership Index, adapted from the Department of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University (n.d.) with content from the Culturally Responsive School Leadership Framework (Khalifa, Gooden & Davis, n.d.). The results will be used both as a self-reflective tool for candidates and to inform program continuous improvement. Candidates will participate both at orientation and again later, near the end of their program. 

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