Education Schools Use Performance Standards to Improve Graduates

Policymakers often complain that teacher education programs don’t have to answer for the quality of their graduates. But over the past five years, as a result of new accreditation rules, hundreds of those institutions have been quietly revamping how they collect and use data about their students.

The standards, which were phased in by the Washington-based National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education starting in 2001, require education schools to provide evidence that their graduates can successfully teach. Institutions seeking accreditation must assess their students’ performance regularly and use the results to refine and improve their programs.

All of the approximately 600 NCATE-accredited institutions were expected to have put the standards fully in place...