Educator Preparation Provider Accreditation: AAQEP as an alternative to CAEP

For the purpose of accreditation more than 900 educator preparation providers (EPPs) were initially accredited by either the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE, 2008) or the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC, 2014).  In 2013 NCATE and TEAC became subsidiaries of the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). While NCATE and TEAC maintained their recognition by the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), reaccreditation was under CAEP, effectively phasing out the subsidiary councils over time (CAEP, 2016).

Once NCATE and TEAC consolidated to form the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), a single national accreditor for educator preparation providers existed.  EPPs continued the endeavor to continuously improve respective of CAEP accreditation standards intended to promote effective leadership and optimize student success within schools While CAEP is the only accreditation council recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), beginning with the 2013 consolidation many EPPs expressed a desire to have more than a single option for accreditation.

Founded in 1997, the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) standards helped frame teacher education and educational leadership programs at institutions of higher learning. Educator preparation providers included traditional institutions of higher education, as well as alternative pathways such as residency programs. To sustain success and seek improvement, NCATE and TEAC both emphasized that faculty within EPPs should systematically evaluate colleagues and collaborate to optimize professional development.

Both NCATE and TEAC also expected faculty to hold a terminal degree or possess exceptional expertise while modeling high quality instructional and professional practices. The qualifications of faculty and teaching quality were expected to align with measurable benchmarks of an effective educational program. “Teacher quality—knowledge and effectiveness—is the number one school-based factor in student achievement” (NCATE, 2003, para. 9).

The following five CAEP standards and two recommendations now guide many EPPs toward goals to raise the performance of candidates as practitioners in the nation’s P-12 schools and thereby raise the stature of the entire profession. Pursuit of these goals requires EPPs to support any claims of quality in each of the following:

Standard 1: Content and Pedagogical Knowledge

Standard 2: Clinical Partnerships and Practice

Standard 3: Candidate Quality, Recruitment, and Selectivity

Standard 4: Program Impact

Standard 5: Provider Quality Assurance and Continuous Improvement

 

Recommendation: Annual Reporting and CAEP Monitoring

Recommendation: Levels of Accreditation Decisions (CAEP, 2022)

 Pursuit of the goals identified by the CAEP standards and recommendations require EPPs to willingly reflect, monitor, and adjust programs to meet increased expectations (CAEP, 2022). While CAEP’s professional standards guide EPPs in the endeavor to meet increased expectations of the accreditation process; beginning with Rodenberg’s (2006) study, teachers continue to exhibit varying awareness of the standards for being highly-qualified.  Therefore, it is reasonable to wonder how effectively CAEP’s professional standards promote what is intended to generalize to actual professional development and effective practice.

As noted above, currently, CAEP is the only programmatic accrediting body for educator preparation that’s recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). EPPs want options for greater individualization.  EPPs are not alike. The strength of our national education system may be based on the diversity of its schools of education and EPPs, which exhibit a variety of missions, visions, program designs, and modes of delivery.  Let’s begin believing each EPP strives to attain the goal of preparing teacher candidates and educational leaders for effective vocations.  Ideally, that would help the pervasive belief of EPPs being evaluated by a single accreditation system that too often is described as engaging in a game of ‘gotcha.’

Perhaps that sentiment best identifies the need for an alternative accrediting body for evaluating the effectiveness of EPPs’ programs. The Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP), have finalized a process by which the quality of educator preparation providers (EPPs) will be reviewed. AAQEP began partnering with several state departments of education in 2018 for the purpose of streamlining and codifying expectations for program quality. The first four EPPs began planning for AAQEP accreditation reviews in early 2019.  AQQEP recognizes the accreditation previously conferred by the Montessori Accreditation Council for Teacher Education, the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, and any accreditor recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation or by the Secretary of the United States Department of Education.  AAQEP bases program review on a set of four standards:

1.      Completer Performance

2.      Completer Professional Competence and Growth

3.      Quality Program Practices

4.      Program Engagement in System Improvement

 Obviously, educators benefit from increased awareness of pedagogical research and best practices that inform their practices. It has long been proven that schools and districts need to provide high quality, research-based staff development relative to effective practices (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). As life-long learners, teachers need to have effective instruction that includes modeling, practice, feedback, and reinforcement (Joyce & Showers, 2002). In a meta-analysis of studies that examined aspects of highly-qualified teachers, Darling-Hammond (2004) codified five quantifiable attributes that frequently appeared to correlate teacher qualifications with student achievement. These included:

1.      General academic and verbal abilities;

2.      Subject matter knowledge;

3.      Pedagogical knowledge as reflected by teacher education coursework or preparation experiences;

4.      Teaching experience; and

5.      Qualifications measured by teacher certification, which included most of the preceding factors.

Quality educators typically exhibit qualitative characteristics. Specifically, an educator’s intuitive dispositions correlate student actions to effective, proactive teacher reactions or responses. This requires teachers to know about children, pedagogy, curriculum, thereby making these elements effectively, efficiently, and logically, interact (Darling-Hammond, 2004).  

However, there is a distinct reason is why measurement of teacher performance remains difficult. Teacher dispositions identified with highly-qualified teachers include collegiality, self-reflection, collaboration, interactive skills, and reflective adjustment to personal and professional practice (Miller & Davidson, 2006). These characteristics were correlated to promoting the defined autonomy and effective collaboration evidenced within highly effective schools (Marzano & Waters, 2009). Yet, an obvious problem is these qualitative characteristics are often difficult to quantify, thereby confounding the reliability of their evaluation.

Based on accreditation and certification requirements (AAQEP, 2021; CAEP, 2022), informal and formal assessment of these dispositions during teacher preparation and educational leadership programs will continue. However, these Accreditation Councils need to be clear on what is expected and then require EPPs to have data based on measurable observation of these exhibited dispositions.  Perhaps then EPPs would consistently promote direct, explicit instruction related to the development of the teacher candidates or educational leaders’ demonstrated emotional intelligence and quantifiably evaluate observable professional dispositions. Stakeholders of EPPs are invited to begin reviewing AAQEP’s member resources as an opportunity for an alternative source for accreditation.

 

To Cite:

Anderson, C.J. (January 31, 2021). Educator preparation provider accreditation: AAQEP

            as an alternative to CAEP. [Web log post] Retrieved from 

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