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College of Education Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Texas State College of Education Department of Curriculum and Instruction About C&I Teacher Education Program Highlights

Teacher Education Program Highlights

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Teacher Education Program is No. 1 in Texas and No. 2 in the United States

The teacher education program at Texas State University is the largest university–based teacher preparation program in Texas. In the 2012-2013 academic year, 904 candidates completed the teacher education program. Teacher education has been a central mission of the university since 1899 when the institution was established as Southwest Texas State Normal School. The teacher education program has received both state and national recognition and has strong working partnerships with the many central Texas school districts that provide the clinical settings in which the preparation program is delivered and, ultimately, employ program graduates.


The teacher education program consists of elementary, bilingual, special education, middle school, secondary, and all-level programs leading to teaching certificates in 32 different areas. The program is staffed by 78 faculty members who teach the 89 different teacher preparation courses and approximately 20 faculty members in the various departments across the campus.

Teacher Education Champions Clinical Preparation of Teachers
The teacher education program shifted to a field-based delivery system in the 1990s when the Department of Curriculum and Instruction implemented a professional development school model where in a substantial portion of program course work is delivered on public school campuses by university faculty. In 2010 the elementary education program developed a new curriculum in which all students earn an ESL or a bilingual certification in conjunction with their EC-6 certification. Currently, 27 instructors teach courses on 22 public school campuses, which represent seven districts in Central Texas.
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Teacher Education is Responsive to Diverse Needs of Society

The mission statement of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction is to “prepare knowledgeable and effective teachers who are responsive to the diverse needs of society.

Through school and community partnerships, we advance research-based inquiry and instructional approaches that influence practice and policy.” We prepare our future teachers to understand, expect, and embrace diversity in the schools and communities where they teach.

Data Inform Continuous Improvement
Through the link below, we provide data that demonstrate the quality of our teacher education program and the graduates who complete our program. The link also provides data on a culture of evidence that we have collected about our program.  Our valid, reliable, and actionable lines of evidence assure quality and support our efforts for continuous improvement to strengthen P-12 student learning.