Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. 56, No. 4, September/October 2005
10.1177/0022487105279965
ESTABLISHING TEACHING AS A PROFESSION THE ESSENTIAL ROLE OF PROFESSIONAL ACCREDITATION Arthur E. Wise
National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education
The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2004. In those 50 years, NCATE has become a learning community, growing and evolving as the knowledge base in teaching and learning has evolved. NCATE starts its second 50 years with a record 690 institutions in its system as accredited institutions, candidates, and precandidates. The central question at hand is a decision teacher educators must make. Will we move forward toward increased professionalization by working collectively to shape an increasing consensus on a common core of knowledge as it is explicated through professional standards? Or will we retreat to “private universes” in which we teach our own conceptions of knowledge about teaching and learning? In that case, the government will decide, in typically narrow fashion, what must be taught and, in some cases, how it must be taught. To avoid that future, we must work together as a profession to bring our differences to the table. NCATE is the teaching profession’s vehicle to do just that, and we look forward to working with institutions ready to make that commitment. Keywords: NCATE; accreditation A profession is an occupation that seeks to regulate itself by (a) developing a consensus concerning what its practitioners must know and be able to do and (b) developing an accreditation and licensing system to ensure the transmission of that knowledge and skill. An occupation becomes a profession when organizations such as universities, states, and the public accept that system. Fifty years ago, representatives of the profession and the public decided to create a professional accreditation system for universities and colleges that prepare teachers and other professional school personnel. In 1954, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) began operation and developed a consensus concerning what new teachers
should know and be able to do. Initially, like other professional accrediting agencies, it framed its standards in terms of inputs on the presumption that these would lead to the desired knowledge and skills. In 1987, it reframed its standards in terms of curriculum guidelines on the presumption that these would lead to the same desired result. In 2001, it again reframed its standards to directly express its consensus concerning the needed knowledge, skills, dispositions, and abilities through expectations for the graduates of its institutions. During its first 35 years of operation, NCATE offered its accreditation services directly to institutions; by 1989, about 500 institutions were accredited. In the meantime, institutions that were accredited needed to undergo parallel
Author’s Note: The author gratefully acknowledges the expert assistance of National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education Vice President for Communications Jane Leibbrand. Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. 56, No. 4, September/October 2005 318-331 DOI: 10.1177/0022487105279965 © 2005 by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
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review systems operated by each state. In response to interest expressed by both institutions and states, NCATE developed its state partnership program. Between 1989 and 2004, nearly all states determined that they should join forces with NCATE. The result has been a remarkable integration of professional and state standards for new teachers. The bottom line is that more than two thirds of the nation’s new teacher graduates are produced by institutions accredited by NCATE; most of the remaining new teachers are graduates of institutions approved by states using standards closely aligned with those of NCATE. Not everyone was pleased at the growing alignment of NCATE and the states, which seemed to be making the accreditation of teacher preparation—with its ever-morerigorous expectations—as much a part of the landscape as the near universal expectation of accreditation of other professional schools. In response, the presidents of some independent liberal arts colleges decided that they needed an alternative. That alternative is the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC), premised on the core idea that every institution should be able to set its own educational standards for teacher candidates and be held accountable on these terms. Advocates of professionalization see this development as a barrier to the creation of a profession of teaching. INTRODUCTION
Teaching Today: The Beginnings of a Profession To begin, we need to ask a question at the heart of our beliefs, commitments, and values regarding education. Do we want to propel the field of teaching further into the realm of a profession? If we do, we face years of hard work in teacher preparation—forging additional consensus on the specialized knowledge, skills, and dispositions required of beginning practitioners. If we accomplish this, there is the potential for great pride in the outcome and great benefit to the American public, through the prepara-
tion of caring, competent, and qualified professional educators that come from our ranks. If we do not move our field toward a profession of teaching, through increasing professionalization of teacher preparation, we will likely face increasing government regulation that imposes its own brand of uniformity on teaching practice. Over the years, governmental agencies have vacillated among policies that prescribe specific courses, place limits on the number of credit hours allowed for teacher education, or banish it altogether. Indeed, government regulation has recently culminated in a definition of a “highly qualified teacher” that does not emanate from the profession’s values and beliefs. Many have watched in dismay as a highly qualified teacher is defined as a person who passes only a test of content knowledge. To bring our values and beliefs to the forefront, we must organize ourselves as other professions have done and work in a united fashion to shift the regulatory pendulum into a more balanced position. What is a strong profession, and on what road do we travel to become one? “A profession . . . is an occupation that regulates itself through systematic, required training and collegial discipline, that has a base in technical, specialized knowledge; and that has a service rather than profit orientation” (Starr, 1982, p. 15). Practice “rests upon some branch of knowledge to which professionals are privy by virtue of study and by initiation and apprenticeship under masters already members of the profession” (Hughes, 1963). As the Holmes Group (1990) states, “The established professions have, over time, developed a body of specialized knowledge, codified and transmitted through professional education and clinical practice.” The foundation of a strong profession is a shared body of knowledge, based on research, and public confidence that professionals are fit to practice. Only a strong enough degree of consensus among practitioners and practitioner educators can build that confidence. With knowledge come skill and the application of professional judgment. “The kind of authority claimed by the professions . . .
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involves not only skill in performing a service, but also the capacity to judge the experience and needs of clients” (Starr, 1982, p. 15). As a final note, Starr (1982) points out that “occupations may or may not succeed [in becoming professions], depending on their means of collective organization and the receptivity of the public and the government” (p. 16). For almost a century, professional accreditation has been an important means of “collective organization” in the recognized professions. Accrediting bodies became the repositories of the consensus about the knowledge and skills needed to enter a profession. Professional accreditation has thus played a key role in quality assurance in medicine, law, psychology, engineering, physical therapy, and other established professions. Its success is due in large part to an uncompromising expectation for quality in the professional preparation programs through the application of standards for both content and pedagogy. “A century ago, medical education was transformed as a common set of curriculum ideas was adopted. . . . Other fields worked to develop a consensus about . . . what core content students should encounter.” These processes “have resulted in curricular conceptions that define major areas of understanding in the various fields” (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005, p. 9). The National Academy of Education concludes that “if teachers are to have access to the knowledge available to inform their practice, such consensus must become a reality for the teaching profession as well” (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005, p. 9). States long ago accepted professional standards in the established professions, as they set preparation and licensing requirements. In these professions, study takes place in a school that has been accredited by a national professional accrediting agency. These accrediting bodies are composed of members of the profession itself, nominated through associations of professionals. Each accrediting body sets rigorous standards for its profession and holds the schools it accredits accountable for meeting these rigorous standards. In this way, the established professions have built the foundation for
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public confidence in the quality of those professions today.
Colleges of Education as Professional Schools Professional schools occupy a unique place in American universities. Because one of the essential elements of a profession is a degree of consensus over a body of knowledge, these schools must necessarily teach their students at least that body of knowledge. Also, because professions are subject to state licensure, professional schools must also prepare their students to pass exams whose content is usually determined by state and national professionalstandards boards. Such external constraints do not currently exist for most other parts of the university. If teaching is to become the profession it claims to be, faculty in schools, colleges, and departments of education must see themselves as more analogous to faculty in medicine, law, psychology, and architecture than to arts and sciences faculty members. Individual arts and sciences faculty are relatively free to plan their courses within fairly broad parameters. Professional school faculty, on the other hand, plan their courses collectively and understand fairly specifically the curriculum of each course. They have obligations derived from their mission to teach a curriculum that ensures that candidates meet state and professional standards. How, then, do professional schools maintain the academic freedom so prized in higher education? The use of substantive and disciplinespecific standards in the accreditation of schools of education is just as consistent with traditional notions of academic freedom as it is in other professions. Like other professional schools, schools of education perform the dual functions of scholarship and practitioner preparation. With respect to scholarship, the primary concern of academic freedom, accreditation promotes it. The profession’s reviewers judge the extent to which faculty members are dedicated to the activity and whether the school provides t h e m w it h t h e re s o urce s t o e n g a g e in scholarship.
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All professions recognize the need to determine what candidates must know. The schools that prepare future practitioners must teach that knowledge, dispositions, and skills to their students. But, in education, there are some differences in standards from state to state and additional expectations at the district and building levels. Nevertheless, there is a large, common core of knowledge in education, including a range of acceptable alternatives that all teachers should understand and be able to apply. This knowledge is reflected in the standards defined by the profession’s accrediting body, NCATE, the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC), the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and professional association teacher preparation standards integrated into NCATE’s system. The National Academy of Education, in its 2005 report, Preparing Teachers for a Changing World, cites handbooks published by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) and the INTASC and NBPTS efforts as “creating a continuum of expectations from beginning teaching to accomplished levels of practice” (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, p. viii). It says that “these standards have become widespread” (p. viii). It further notes that “most teacher education institutions have used these national and state standards to ground the foundation for their program designs and for their teacher education outcome measures” (p. viii). It is consistent with the norms of professional schools to be expected to teach core concepts. The method by which faculty teach these concepts is left in their hands, and beyond that, faculty members are free to supplement that common core with other matters of their own choosing. Indeed, NCATE expects the colleges of education that it accredits to meet professional, state, and their own institutional standards. Hundreds of state mandates have historically controlled what is taught as well as the standards that are used to grant a teaching license. To become a true profession, educators must flip this paradigm. Collectively, educators must
set the standards for preparation—certainly, in concert with state policy makers and the public—and expect policy makers to enforce them. NCATE has been about this work with considerable success. Nearly all of the states now use or have adapted NCATE’s professional standards; substantial progress has been made.
NCATE: The Teaching Profession’s Creation Two accrediting bodies for teacher preparation now exist; one celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2004, and the other is a new agency trying an alternate approach. It has been noted by some that the two bodies currently recognized to accredit teacher preparation, NCATE and TEAC, now, on the surface, look similar. Indeed, TEAC says that the differences “are largely political” (Murray, 2005). However, outward “appearance” should not be taken at face value. The two organizations are fundamentally different in philosophy, structure, and process. We first move to the origin, structure, and leadership of NCATE, as its process and outcomes emanate from these foundations. Next, and more important, we move to the heart of the difference: the use of substantive, disciplinespecific standards versus an approach in which these are absent. In these two important areas, NCATE moves the field toward professionalization. Creating a professional accrediting body to set standards for the preparation of teachers is a means of “collective organization” for the teaching profession, a condition that Starr (1982) notes is crucial to forming a profession. NCATE is the profession’s mechanism for supporting high-quality teacher preparation. NCATE’s mission is to judge the degree to which colleges of education and the individual programs that prepare P-12 school personnel meet professional and public expectations outlined in external, general, and field-specific standards—standards developed by a broad spectrum of education stakeholders. The immediate outcome is the accreditation of those colleges of education judged as meeting the standards; the ultimate outcome is qualified educators who are able to help students learn.
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NCATE is the teaching profession’s largest collective organization. It is now sustained by more than 30 member organizations representing the entire education profession and millions of Americans that have come together to strengthen the preparation of teachers and other professional P-12 school personnel. TEAC, initiated in the 1990s by one organization, the Council for Independent Colleges, was recognized as a second accrediting body in teacher preparation in 2003.1 It is axiomatic that the leadership of an organization—and the source from which that leadership is derived—drives the organization’s mission, focus, and management. There is a critical difference between the leadership of NCATE and that of TEAC, which leads the organizations in two disparate directions. Furthermore, there is a seismic difference in how the two organizations came to be, and the two different beginnings drive their culture, their mission, and their outcomes.
The Origin of NCATE: Driving the Mission NCATE was created by the profession and the states 50 years ago. The practitioners and the states, represented by the National Education Association (at the time, representing virtually all public school educators) and the Council of Chief State School Officers, recognized the need for an independent evaluative body to serve as the quality-assurance arm in teacher preparation. (The AACTE carried out the accreditation function before NCATE was incorporated.) At its incorporation in 1954, five organizations representing the field at large at that time (AACTE, Council of Chief State School Officers, National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification, National Education Association, and National School Boards Association) came together to form NCATE. During the next half century, associations of teaching professionals grew in number and joined NCATE to help ensure quality in the preparation of teachers for our nation’s schools.
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Control of the Agency NCATE’s board structure is similar to that of other professional accrediting bodies. The agency is clearly in the hands of the profession and policy makers. Its board members are named by the associations broadly representing the profession of teaching and the policy-maker community. Because NCATE’s membership and governing structure includes all stakeholders—public members and state and local policy makers, as well as teachers, teacher educators, administrators, and other education personnel—its structure ensures that the council’s evaluation of the institution is external and oriented to the real world of teaching and schools. NCATE’s boards are drawn from these national associations, and the boards act as checks and balances in the system. TEAC operates a self-perpetuating board; individual directors are elected at annual meetings by the current directors. Other professional accrediting bodies do not follow this practice. Unlike TEAC’s system, and contrary to TEAC’s claim of similarity to other accrediting bodies in terms of composition of boards (Murray, 2005), other professional accrediting bodies are governed, supported, and represented by individuals who are appointed or elected by the professional societies or associations in that field. The Accrediting Board for Engineering Technology (ABET), for example, which accredits engineering programs, perhaps bears the closest resemblance to NCATE among accrediting bodies. It works with a variety of disciplines (electrical, mechanical, etc.) as does NCATE (mathematics, science, etc.), and it is composed of 30 professional societies as NCATE is composed of its more than 30 professional and policy-maker organizations. In terms of its governance, ABET’s board members are named by the individual professional societies (personal communication with Dan Hodge, director, accreditation, ABET, November 18, 2004) as are NCATE’s board members. Nursing also involves the entire field in the selection of its board; it elects its board by ballot from the field at large (personal communication with Barbara
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Grumet, executive director, National League for Nursing Accreditation Commission, November 10, 2004). The accrediting board for architecture draws its board members from four professional associations. In psychology, specialty groups (school psychology, clinical, etc.) develop slates of three names in rank order, again following the principle of selecting board members from the specialty groups within the profession. The professions have developed this practice to ensure that the balance of power is spread equally among stakeholders in the field and that the diversity within the field is truly represented within the accrediting body. In terms of top leadership, the chair of the NCATE executive and unit accreditation boards rotates yearly among those in the profession: teacher educators, teachers, specialists, and policy makers. TEAC grew out of a task force of the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC); it originated not from the profession of teaching but from a group of college presidents of particular institutions in higher education who were interested in a less intensive approach to accreditation (copy of communication to CIC member presidents from Allen P. Splete, president of the CIC, August 20, 1997). In contrast to the representational characteristic of the leadership on the NCATE (and other accrediting bodies) board, the chair of the TEAC board has been static. The TEAC chair is president emeritus of the CIC, the mission of which “focuses solely on providing services to independent colleges.” Ironically, one third of NCATE institutions are independent colleges, most of them small, the same proportion as was the case when TEAC was formed. The number of small, independent colleges seeking NCATE accreditation has actually risen in recent years. THE USE OF PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS IN ACCREDITATION
new standards were needed. High standards for students became the watchword. In 1989, President George H. W. Bush summoned state governors to a first-ever education summit and established ambitious national education goals. States and the teaching profession engaged in a variety of standards-setting activities and upgraded standards for students and teachers. The teaching profession, through NCATE’s leadership, for the first time aligned standards for preservice preparation, model state licensing standards, and standards for advanced certification of teachers with P-12 student standards. In addition, NCATE initiated a project to foster alignment of the Educational Testing Service tests used for state licensing purposes with the profession’s standards, and that project is proceeding today. Alignment of standards and assessments used for teacher preparation and licensing has begun. In the space of a decade, professionalism in teaching advanced, as the teaching profession’s standards have been widely adopted as state standards. This alignment of state and professional standards has instantiated a continuum of teacher preparation and development. The continuum is based on sets of standards and assessments that set benchmarks for teacher performance as candidate, novice teacher, career teacher, and nationally certified teacher. The concept of a continuum of preparation and development was accepted long ago by other established professions as they evolved rigorous preparation and licensing standards that earned the trust of citizens. As simple as the idea sounds, it had never been accomplished in teaching. The alignment of standards has sparked national dialogue about what a teacher should know and be able to do at each stage of a career—from candidate to student teacher, to intern, to career teacher, to advanced professional. From that dialogue, a common framework of expectations has emerged.
Context
Move Toward Consensus or Fragmentation?
In 1983, A Nation at Risk alerted the country that amid tremendous change and upheaval,
As well as being the teaching profession’s largest collective organization, NCATE is the
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Conceptual Framework The conceptual framework(s) establishes the shared vision for a unit’s efforts in preparing educators to work effectively in P-12 schools. It provides direction for programs, courses, teaching, candidate performance, scholarship, service, and unit accountability. The conceptual framework(s) is knowledge based, articulated, shared, coherent, consistent with the unit and/or institutional mission, and continuously evaluated.
I. CANDIDATE PERFORMANCE Standard 1: Candidate Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions Candidates preparing to work in schools as teachers or other professional school personnel know and demonstrate the content, pedagogical, and professional knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to help all students learn. Assessments indicate that candidates meet professional, state, and institutional standards.
Standard 2: Assessment System and Unit Evaluation The unit has an assessment system that collects and analyzes data on applicant qualifications, candidate and graduate performance, and unit operations to evaluate and improve the unit and its programs.
II. UNIT CAPACITY Standard 3: Field Experiences and Clinical Practice The unit and its school partners design, implement, and evaluate field experiences and clinical practice so that teacher candidates and other school personnel develop and demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to help all students learn.
Standard 4: Diversity The unit designs, implements, and evaluates curriculum and experiences for candidates to acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to help all students learn. These experiences include working with diverse higher education and school faculty, diverse candidates, and diverse students in P-12 schools.
Standard 5: Faculty Qualifications, Performance, and Development Faculty are qualified and model best professional practices in scholarship, service, and teaching, including the assessment of their own effectiveness as related to candidate performance; they also collaborate with colleagues in the disciplines and schools. The unit systematically evaluates faculty performance and facilitates professional development.
Standard 6: Unit Governance and Resources The unit has the leadership, authority, budget, personnel, facilities, and resources, including information technology resources, for the preparation of candidates to meet professional, state, and institutional standards. FIGURE 1: National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education Unit Standards SOURCE: © 2002, National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, Professional Standards for the Accreditation of Schools, Colleges, and Departments of Education.
repository of the teaching profession’s standards for preparation (see Figure 1). Because teaching is still a developing profession, the knowledge on which the field rests is not fully formed. However, with advances in technology, and with the radically changing demographics
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of students in America, the knowledge base will never be a “complete” or finished work. Instead, it will always be a work in progress. NCATE makes the commitment that what is known about best practices and research guides its standards and expectations. The standards
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have changed over time and will continue to do so. NCATE, as a learning organization, is committed to staying abreast of the research and leading the field toward greater consensus. One can take an opposing approach, as does TEAC, to say that the knowledge base is not complete, and therefore, each institution is free to decide for itself what its standards are. This approach does not build a profession, and it will leave the field vulnerable to continuous government regulation of education—usually imposed without meaningful participation by teacher educators and teachers—the exact opposite of the autonomy revered by those in higher education. The established professions gave up a degree of institutional autonomy to form their collective organization through professional accreditation standards. In return, they have gained a shared knowledge base, autonomy in setting professional preparation and entry standards, and autonomy for their practitioners and have thus built strong professions. Almost 700 teacher preparation institutions, producing more than two thirds of the nation’s teachers (Westat, 2004, compilation by Westat, analysis by NCATE; NCATE, 2002) are now moving in this direction through their participation in NCATE’s accreditation system. The Holmes Group (1990) concludes that in relation to other professions, “scholarship and empirical research on education has matured, providing a solid base for an intellectually vital program of professional studies.” This point is one that some scholars dispute. However, there is certainly a knowledge base for the efficacy of clinical practice, there is research to indicate that knowledge of the subject is crucial, there is a research base on diversity and exceptionalities, and there is a growing body of content-specific pedagogy, among others. A new National Academy of Education compendium was released early in 2005. The Committee on Teacher Education that produced the work was asked to articulate what teachers should understand for effective practice and to define a set of core concepts for teacher education. Its focus is on (a) the foundational knowledge that teacher candidates need to become
competent and effective new teachers and (b) the implications for curriculum. The committee is a diverse group of practicing teachers and teacher educators as well as researchers who are experts in teacher education, educational psychology, language and culture, and content areas in education. The report “focuses on content considered essential based on strong professional consensus and research evidence” (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005, p. ix). It “stands on the shoulders of many other efforts” (p. viii) and helps answer the question of how the knowledge base can inform the curriculum of teacher education. The report’s recommendations are the result of “scholarly consensus” (p. ix) based on research about learning, teaching, teacher learning, and teacher education. This document verifies that there is consensus within teacher education and adds to the growing knowledge base. A common goal all educators and other stakeholders agree on is a more robust shared base of knowledge about teaching and learning to promote a common framework for professional preparation. That result goes to the very nature of the concept of profession. TEAC’s position that teacher preparation units should be free to determine the standards for what is taught, is not just a different philosophical approach or a matter of academic freedom. It is the very rejection of the concept of profession. Indeed, opponents of teacher preparation have argued that teaching is not a profession precisely because it does not have an agreed-on body of knowledge. The notion that each unit should be able to decide independently what to teach its candidates only gives credence to that argument. This is not to say that to create a profession, it is necessary for all educators to agree on every technique used in their practice and to see that only those agreed-on techniques are taught to their future colleagues. Even today, there is no detailed consensus among lawyers about proper approaches to constitutional interpretation, for example. Physicians still differ about proper treatment of cancer. Cancer patients may be given different options of treatment based on their own genetic makeup, statistical probabilities, and circumstances. But the oncologist and
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radiologist are aware of, respect, and acknowledge each other’s contribution to the care of the patient. Consensus may be somewhat more general in nature in certain professions that work with the mind—social work, counseling, psychology, psychiatry—and teaching. Many philosophies abound in the profession of psychiatry, but Freudians, Jungians, Adlerians, and the like, recognize the value of the others. This does not detract from the promulgation of and adherence to professional standards in that field or in other like professions. Even the accreditors of theological schools require that prospective representatives of particular faiths have at least some knowledge of other faiths. Indeed, in many professions, a key element of preparation, if not the key element, is teaching candidates to make professional judgments with respect to alternative approaches in specific situations—not the rote learning of “right answers.” Professional consensus can be about responsible alternative approaches and methodologies for selecting them. Even in education, there is substantive professional agreement about many matters in the field and a number of widely supported approaches in the remainder. If total agreement on the entire substance of a profession were a necessary precondition, no profession would likely have a set of agreed-on standards or an accreditation system. In its embrace of the profession’s standards, ever evolving and changing as new research and new practices emerge, NCATE continually strives toward the consensus building that has helped develop the strength of the profession today. TEAC’s approach seems destined to move the field toward fragmentation and away from the creation of a profession. As well, the TEAC approach seems to contradict itself. On one hand, TEAC calls state standards “problematic” and of “uneven value,” and national professional standards are called “hypotheses.” On the other hand, TEAC then states that “the TEAC framework is compatible with the standards promulgated by most state agencies and other professional educational organizations” (Murray, 2005, p. 310).
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Other fields may have greater consensus only because they have worked together in united fashion to achieve it. Are teacher educators ready to make that commitment?
NCATE’S Professional Standards NCATE expects its accredited institutions to provide evidence that candidates know the relevant research in their discipline and use it to help students learn, recognizing that there are multiple pedagogical approaches and that some work better in certain settings and with particular students than others. NCATE expects professionally accredited institutions to provide evidence that candidates meet the standards promulgated by specialty professional associations to guide the design and delivery of their programs. Thus, the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics, the National Science Teachers Association, and 17 other specialty associations set professional standards in their respective disciplines, and NCATE incorporates these standards into its accreditation system. NCATE’s standards-setting process incorporates all education stakeholders, including colleges of education, to ensure that the standards reflect the knowledge and skills needed to be a competent, caring, and well-qualified professional educator today. NCATE sets its standards using an open, public process. Drafts of the standards are developed through rounds of consensus-building activities, starting with a committee of the Unit Accreditation Board for an initial draft and then gaining input from all NCATE board members and, finally, input from the entire field through hearings at professional meetings and through Web and e-mail communication. NCATE has both discipline-specific and more encompassing unit standards that apply to the college of education as a whole. TEAC has only statements of general principles as standards. Inclusion of specialized professional standards is an integral part of NCATE’s accreditation process; these standards integrate the content of specific fields into the NCATE system. These standards are aligned with P-12 stu-
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dent standards and, thus, link to the state’s requirements for children. In combination, NCATE’s standards provide educational content. The alignment of the specialized, professional, association standards for teacher preparation to state standards for P-12 students then permits the NCATE standards to act as a driver for P-12 education reform. INSTITUTIONAL AND STATE ACCEPTANCE OF PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS
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Participation with NCATE The number of institutions in the NCATE system now has reached almost 700, representing growing acceptance of professional standards and consensus in the field and a growing understanding within the field itself of the importance of professional accountability. In the past 6 years, NCATE has seen the number of professionally accredited institutions rise by more than one fifth—from 488 to 600, with a continuing rise in the number of candidates and precandidates. The number of candidates rose to 102 in 2004 (see Figure 2). An analysis of Westat data reveals approximately 1,200 colleges of education (Westat, 2004, compilation by Westat, analysis by NCATE). Only 783 of those are members of AACTE, the professional association that keeps colleges of education current on trends, issues, and knowledge. In all, 80% of the colleges of education that are known to be professionally active through their membership in AACTE are NCATE accredited. Approximately two thirds of the nation’s 188 doctoral-degree-granting institutions in the United States are now accredited (two thirds of the 159 reporting in the U.S. News survey). Together with institutions now seeking NCATE accreditation, 70% of the 159 reporting are participating in the NCATE system. Title II data also provide verification that two thirds of the nation’s new teacher graduates— 90,243 of the 135,366 total, or 66.67%—complete their education at NCATE-accredited institutions (Westat, 2004, compilation by Westat, analysis by NCATE).
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FIGURE 2: Top Panel: Steady Growth in the Number of National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE)–Accredited Institutions, 1999-2004; Bottom Panel: Total Number of Institutions in the NCATE System (Accredited Candidates and Precandidates), 1999-2004
State/NCATE Partnerships NCATE represents professional and public influence because it includes in its structure members of the profession, elected and appointed policy makers, and members of the public. A mix of public and professional influence within the accrediting body acknowledges the reality of state authority in education in the United States. In teaching, states and the professional accrediting body work together to align professional national and state standards. Much of the alignment has already taken place, and it has streamlined reporting processes for
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institutions, eliminating the need to respond to multiple agencies. Through 1987, NCATE had no relationship with the states. The states and NCATE conducted parallel processes so that institutions wrote two reports, hosted two reviews, and were judged by two sets of standards. In 1988, the newly overhauled NCATE created State/ NCATE Partnerships, which were formalized as a program in 1993. The purpose of the partnership program is to align state and professional standards—indeed, to mesh state standards with professional standards where possible and to reduce duplication of effort between professional accreditation and state program approval. The program has been a success. States regard NCATE as a resource in standards development and implementation and work with NCATE as a partner to increase the rigor of teacher preparation. The decision by 39 states to adopt or adapt NCATE’s unit standards as state standards for approving teacher education institutions demonstrates the level of acceptance of NCATE by the states. In those states, institutions are evaluated by the state according to NCATE’s standards whether or not they choose to seek NCATE accreditation. Furthermore, in 48 states and two jurisdictions, program standards are the same as or are closely aligned with NCATE’s program standards. In addition, 22 states have chosen to delegate review of teacher education programs to NCATE for purposes of NCATE accreditation and state program approval. The question of whether NCATE accreditation makes a difference has already been answered in the affirmative by states, not only through numerous testimonials but through decisions of state departments of education and state boards of education as they work in partnership with NCATE in the application of national professional standards. Across the United States, NCATE accreditation is seen as an indicator of quality in teacher preparation. “The unbiased, external nature of the NCATE procedures provides Maryland with high-stakes decision making that is objective and separate from state policies. Mary328
land applauds NCATE for its leadership in performance-based decision making in the accreditation of teacher education institutions,” says Nancy Grasmick, Maryland state superintendent (personal communication, August 28, 2003). Peter McWalters, commissioner of education, Rhode Island, says, “The Rhode Island Department of Education views NCATE accreditation as a clear indicator of quality educator preparation and automatically grants Rhode Island certification to graduates of NCATE accredited institutions” (personal communication, August 28, 2003). Jayne Meyer, director, Alabama Teacher Education and Certification, says, “Alabama is one of the original partner states and we continue to benefit from that partnership” (personal communication, September 15, 2003). Because states have accepted NCATE standards, and because institutions must meet state standards, the institution will likely use the profession’s standards as a base. Indeed, TEAC points out that three institutions completing the TEAC process met state standards. Those standards, in many cases, would be the national professional standards that NCATE has promulgated through its state partnership program. TEAC says that “those programs accredited by TEAC that have adopted their states’ standards have had no difficulty establishing that TEAC’s requirements were satisfied” (Murray, 2005, pp. 310-311). Meeting state standards is a requirement for the operation of any teacher preparation program and can be done through state program approval rather than a duplicative process. The question to be answered by professional accreditation is whether the programs meet professional, state, and institutional standards. NCATE’s system answers that question as it undertakes a review by specialists in the relevant discipline areas. TEAC’s system does not. TEAC and States Furthermore, TEAC asserts that it “will review only [italics in original] those programs for which the institution has evidence to support its claims” (e-mail communication with F. Murray, December 2, 2004). In a follow-up
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paragraph, TEAC’s guidance notes that “TEAC’s protocols with most states, however, require that the institution submit all its programs for accreditation review” (e-mail communication with F. Murray, December 2, 2004). In effect, as TEAC progresses in its communications with states, the state policy of review of all programs supersedes TEAC’s policy and, in effect, cancels it. Thus, one of the principles on which TEAC differentiates itself from NCATE and on which it was founded—freedom to select which programs would be placed for accreditation review—is evidently not always or usually followed in actual practice. THE ROLE OF CONTENT AND CONTENT PEDAGOGY IN THE REVIEW PROCESS
NCATE A key feature of NCATE’s quality-assurance system is the substantive content review of individual programs. NCATE conducts a two-level review of the entire school, college, or department of education—and individual programs, for example, mathematics and science. All 50 of NCATE’s partnerships use NCATE’s program standards or standards closely aligned with them as their state program standards. For those that use NCATE program review (in 22 states) for institutions desiring accreditation, professionals in each teacher or educator field offered at the university provide a careful and thorough review of the program. They determine whether the program meets professional standards and should thus be a nationally recognized program at a professionally accredited institution. Three professionals representing, for example, mathematics, science, social studies, or education leadership complete the review for each program offered. On-site unit reviewers have the ability to further examine program quality and interview professors and administrators, especially about programs that received a less-than-favorable review from the specialists. These reviews are closely tied to the institution’s ability to meet NCATE’s Unit Standard 1 on professional knowledge, skills, and
dispositions. The individual program reviews provide data for the on-site team to determine whether the institution meets or does not meet NCATE’s Standard 1. NCATE, in collaboration with its member associations, trains program reviewers in the application of the program standards, as well as evaluation of candidate assessment and outcome data. Assessments included on the program report must be taken by all candidates in the program. These common measures across programs increase consistency of the data NCATE receives on programs. Beyond licensing test results, institutions are free to choose their own assessments. NCATE has recently streamlined its process for the review of individual programs within the college of education, using Web technology and a common review format for each discipline. The new process replaces lengthy institutional paper submissions with state-of-the-art technology and streamlined reporting.
TEAC At a time when knowledge of subject matter is the watchword and when content-specific pedagogy (e.g., how to teach reading) ranks as the second item of importance, the TEAC system includes specialists in neither on a systematic basis. TEAC attempts to evaluate the evidence presented by the institution without the benefit of external content specialists or content-specific pedagogical specialists for each program. TEAC encourages the institution to bundle programs together where it is possible for data to be aggregated (Murray, 2005). For example, TEAC currently reviews some “secondary education” programs. But with the push for accountability and the requirement that candidates have adequate content knowledge, states now focus on specific areas of secondary education when they grant licenses (e.g., secondary mathematics education). Thus, TEAC’s designation and its focus do not seem to be in concert with state expectations. States have moved to complement NCATE’s substantive reviews to better ensure that candidates have the requisite
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content knowledge and how to apply it so that students learn. Curiously, TEAC asserts that it does not address “the basic accreditation question of whether evidence is sufficient” to meet standards: The audit process does not address the basic accreditation question of whether or not the evidence is compelling, persuasive, sufficient, or convincing; instead, the audit, with the exception of the case for institutional commitment, determines only whether the descriptions and characterizations of evidence in the Inquiry Brief are accurate. The auditors [sic] question is no more or no less than “Are the statements in the Inquiry Brief accurate?” (TEAC, 2004a)
Following is TEAC on the role of the TEAC auditors: The auditors do not judge whether the claims are true or even credible. The auditors do not judge, for example, whether or not the program’s graduates understand pedagogy. They judge only whether the evidence (e.g., a mean score on a standardized test) the program faculty relies on to advance and support their claim that their graduates understand pedagogy was in fact the score the program’s graduates earned on the test and was just as the program faculty had reported it in the Inquiry Brief. (TEAC, 2004b)
The system focuses on the form, not the substance, of teacher education. The audit and the decision-making TEAC panels have no means to independently examine content and content pedagogy, and thus, the system is vulnerable to the flaws of the generic approach to teaching and teacher education. THE ESSENTIAL CONNECTION BETWEEN TEACHERS AND TEACHER EDUCATORS Because, historically, there was little connection between higher education and the P-12 system except for student teaching, higher education was insulated from the P-12 world of practice. Thus, preservice education was separate and apart from the practice of teaching— one of the reasons the knowledge base did not grow and develop as in the other professions. There was no incentive for higher-education personnel to participate in a larger system of standards, and thus, many higher-education
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faculty did not see themselves as part of a profession but solely as faculty members in the higher-education system. As higher-education personnel and P-12 personnel begin to blend roles and responsibilities as a result of increased expectations for meaningful partnerships, many educators in higher education now view themselves as a true part of the teaching profession and want to participate more fully in the quality-assurance mechanisms that have made the established professions what they are today—professional accreditation, strong licensing, and advanced certification. Indeed, today, some higher-education faculty members are now board certified. NCATE’s expectations in this area are now stronger and reflect the need to mesh the P-12 and the preservice educator cultures. Teacher educators and teachers now jointly plan and implement the clinical education of teachers. This expectation brings teaching closer to the culture of shared experience and collegiality apparent in the established professions. Will the profession of teaching continue its forward movement and match strides made in the 1990s, or will it cede control, authority, and power to state and federal governmental entities? Will it continue to move toward parity with the established professions in terms of professional standards or take a step backward toward the time when no such standards existed for teaching? Will the preparation of teachers reflect a vision of the profession shared by all key P-16 stakeholders or be based on the visions of individual higher-education institutions? These are the questions we face at this critical moment in our history. NOTE 1. The Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) makes reference to business, nursing, and law, each of which has two accrediting bodies, according to a TEAC article (Murray, 2005). Information obtained by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education from the accrediting bodies provides other information as follows. In law, the American Bar Association (ABA) “is the only recognized accrediting body for legal education” (personal communication with Camille De Jorna, associate consultant, ABA, December 8, 2004). The other organization, the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), is “a scholarly membership association that handles education conferences, the annual meeting, and faculty recruitment.” Any AALS report “is
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not a part of the ABA accreditation process” (personal communication with Camille De Jorna, associate consultant, ABA, December 8, 2004). Business does not meet the requirements of a profession (autonomy in practice, etc.), so it is not relevant. In nursing, a second, relatively new, accrediting body accredits 4year and master ’s programs and does not sanction 2-year licensure programs, whereas the older one accredits 2-year licensure programs as well as practical nursing programs that do not lead to an RN designation.
REFERENCES Darling-Hammond, L., & Bransford, J. (Eds.). (2005). Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass; sponsored by the National Academy for Education. Holmes Group. (1990). Tomorrow’s schools. East Lansing, MI: Author. Hughes, E. (1963). Professions. Daedalus, 656. Murray, F. B. (2005). On building a unified system of accreditation in teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 56, 307-317. National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. (2002). Professional standards for the accreditation of schools, colleges, and departments of education. Washington, DC: Author. Starr, P. (1982). The social transformation of American medicine. New York: Basic Books.
Teacher Education Accreditation Council. (2004a). Audit information. Retrieved December 2004 from http:// www.teac.org/accreditation/audit/scope.asp Teacher Education Accreditation Council. (2004b). Audit information: Verifying the evidence related to specific claims. Retrieved December 2004 from http://www.teac.org/ accreditation/audit/verifyingevidence.asp Westat. (2004). Title 2. Retrieved from http://www.Title2 .org
Arthur E. Wise is president of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education in Washington, DC, where he has led the implementation of performance-based accreditation. He has led the council’s efforts in aligning accreditation standards with model state licensing standards and advanced certification standards and has partnered with a major testing company to ensure that assessments used for state licensing are aligned with the profession’s standards. He previously served as director of the Center for the Study of the Teaching Profession at the RAND Corporation, consulted on the creation of the U.S. Department of Education, and was associate dean and associate professor of education at the University of Chicago.
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