Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation's New Efforts to Professionalize Teacher Education Through Accreditation and Accountability

• In Event: Fixing Teacher Preparation: Analysis and Critique of Major Reform Initiatives

Abstract

Problem and Significance
Within the field of teacher education, program accreditation has been a primary means to ensuring ongoing programmatic improvement (Bryk et al., 2013). However, more recently there has been a trend to improve teacher education by focusing on its effect on P-12 student learning (Hess & McShane, 2014). Partly in response to calls for a more outcomes-driven field (NCATE/TEAC, 2010; Gastic, 2014; Worrell et al., 2014), the two major US accrediting bodies merged to form the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) to enable “the profession to speak with a single voice” (NCATE/TEAC, 2010. p. 2). This paper examines CAEP’s new accreditation approach.
Perspectives, Modes of Inquiry, and Data Sources
This paper employs frame analysis and “teacher quality policy dimensions” (see Paper 1) to analyze CAEP’s new accreditation approach in the context of the larger teacher education reform movement. Data sources for this analysis include: documents about the merger’s history; CAEP policy tools and documents, including accreditation manuals, handbooks and position statements; other perspectives/voices within teacher education, such as the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education; and news articles covering ongoing developments throughout CAEP’s implementation. (See Table 2.)
Interpretations and Conclusions
CAEP asserts that its new approach is a response to public demand that educator preparation providers should produce teachers who are “classroom-ready” on the first day of teaching, meaning that they are able to significantly increase student achievement (CAEP, 2013). Our analysis revealed that CAEP’s diagnostic frame—its assumptions about “the problem” of teacher quality—is that preparation programs themselves are a major culprit because they have not been held to high enough standards. CAEP's prognostic frame—how to fix the problem—is to base program accreditation on data documenting that programs actually have an impact on student learning. This means that programs must demonstrate that their graduates enter and stay in teaching, work with students who evaluate them in positive ways, satisfy their employers, and actually enhance P-12 student learning gains based on highly transparent mechanisms ensuring public accountable. To understand these frames in the broader context of teacher education, our analysis of CAEP’s policy dimensions revealed a complex set of issues about CAEP’s policy targets and actors, including which organizations constitute and/or have jurisdiction over “the profession.” CAEP’s operating assumptions about the links among teacher preparation quality, P-12 student learning, and national economic success, which are broadly consistent with those of the proposed USDOE regulations (see Paper 2), has led to dissension among other actors and policy players within the field of teacher education, such as AACTE (2015).
Contributions
As the now sole national accrediting organization for teacher education programs, CAEP has the potential to dramatically impact the structure and shape of teacher education in the U.S.. Illuminating the implications and consequences of shifts in CAEP’s approach to improving teacher education quality illustrates how CAEP’s redefinition of accreditation is currently reshaping teacher education in ways more consistent with the larger “ed reform” movement whose focus is market-based reform and educational accountability.

Authors

• Andrew Frederic Miller, Boston College

• Elizabeth Stringer Keefe, Lesley University