COLLEGE PARK, MD (March, 2012) Dr. Donna Wiseman, Dean of the College of Education, has been named as a member of a high profile national commission to raise standards for teacher preparation across the nation. In order to help ensure that every classroom in the nation has an effective teacher, a national Commission on Standards and Performance Reporting will develop rigorous accreditation standards for educator preparation that will raise the bar for preparation providers, the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) announced today. CAEP is the new accrediting body being formed through the unification of two organizations charged with assuring quality in educator preparation, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC).
The Commission will ensure increased accountability through a focus on outcome data and key program characteristic data. CAEP has pledged to use multiple measures in its evaluation system, including new sources of data from state longitudinal databases. CAEP standards will also give increased attention to recruiting and admissions to help ensure a supply of candidates who are motivated to enter the teaching workforce, have characteristics associated with teaching success, and who are prepared in areas in which they are needed. CAEP will expect accredited preparation providers to take bold steps to recruit, prepare, and help develop effective teachers who can contribute their expertise to improving student performance in all schools.
Through the development of the new standards and accompanying processes, CAEP's quality assurance system will be characterized by the accreditor's dual mission of accountability and improvement. CAEP's decision-making will be transparent and will clearly recognize the qualities that matter in programs.
CAEP believes that all educator preparation providers should be subject to the same high standards of quality. To make this possible, one of the tasks of the Commission is to ensure accreditation standards are appropriate for all preparation providers. In the past, accreditation standards have been geared specifically to higher education institutions.
The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, to become operational in 2013, will accredit over 900 teacher education institutions across the nation, producing approximately 175,000 graduates annually.
For more information, see CAEP Updates at www.ncate.org.
You can also visit www.caepsite.org and http://www.teac.org/news-events/caep/.
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Halima Cherif, Assistant Director for Communications, at: hcherif@umd.edu
