Opinion
School & District Management Letter to the Editor

Accrediting Teacher Prep: Former TEAC and NCATE Leaders Weigh In

September 13, 2016 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

To the Editor:

There is no question, as is pointed out in “Teacher-Prep Accreditation Group Seeks Traction,” that the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) and the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) had fundamentally different views and practices when they were founded; however, these were successfully bridged in the 2010 design-team report. The report was the blueprint for the new organization—the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation, or CAEP—which was formed by the merger of the other two groups.

The CAEP leadership saw the report as a provisional document, while the TEAC leadership saw it as a binding “constitution” for how the organization would operate. The design team, for example, published new common CAEP standards, in which they promised that any subsequent standards would be “fewer, clearer, and higher.” CAEP, of course, failed to deliver on the first two, and the jury is out on whether the 2013 CAEP standards are really “higher” than prior standards—meeting that goal depends on what evidence will be accepted to satisfy the standards and if that evidence increases the accuracy with which qualitycan be detected and affirmed.

Had CAEP followed the plan set out in the design-team report, it would have avoided all the problems described in the Education Week article. It would also have avoided the vote of no confidence by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and a congressional protest of a standard. I would argue that CAEP would also have been able to accomplish the following: the implementation of rigorous standards in language understood and accepted by everyone; recognition from the U.S. Department of Education and all CAEP’s state partnerships; retention of a mature and seasoned staff and substantial financial reserves; increased membership, owing to a genuine respect for programs; and the development of recognized scholars as volunteers with an intellectual capacity to advance the field.

CAEP, hopefully, may still accomplish all this, but would have done so sooner and surer if it had not abandoned its founding principles.

Frank B. Murray

H. Rodney Sharp Professor Emeritus

Quondam Dean

University of Delaware

Newark, Del.

The letter writer was the founding president of TEAC.

Events

Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Privacy & Security Webinar
Navigating Cybersecurity: Securing District Documents and Data
Learn how K-12 districts are addressing the challenges of maintaining a secure tech environment, managing documents and data, automating critical processes, and doing it all with limited resources.
Content provided by Softdocs

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

School & District Management Opinion A Good Principal Knows When It's Time to Leave
I didn’t leave my job because of burnout; I stepped away from being a school leader because it was in everybody’s best interest.
Matthew Ebert
4 min read
Conceptual illustration of someone handing off a baton to someone else over a completed puzzle.
Vanessa Solis/Education Week via Canva
School & District Management Principals Tell Politicians on Capitol Hill: We’re Burning Out
Students' mental health top principals' growing list of concerns.
6 min read
People walk outside the U.S Capitol building in Washington, June 9, 2022.
Visitors walk outside the U.S Capitol building in Washington on June 9, 2022.
Patrick Semansky/AP
School & District Management Women Superintendents Experience Bias on the Climb to Leadership
Interpersonal slights and inequities make it hard for women to land the job and stay in it.
3 min read
Woman stands in front of a staircase in different colors. She is about to walk up the stairs. Concept of standing in front of a challenge and finding the right solution and courage to move on.
mikkelwilliam/E+
School & District Management Fewer of Today's Superintendents Are at Retirement Age
A new survey of superintendents adds to what we know about the people who lead the nation's school districts.
4 min read
Conceptual illustration of money, salaries and data.
iStock/Getty