Benjamin Riley
July 15, 2013

Benjamin Riley

Benjamin Riley

Are we finally about to get serious about improving the professional training of schoolhouse teachers and principals in this country? And will California be a leader or laggard in this attempt?

Earlier this calendar week, a special blue-ribbon commission convened by the Quango for the Accreditation of Educator Training (CAEP) – the new national accreditation organization – issued its terminal written report with recommendations for dramatically different standards for accrediting teacher-preparation programs. These new standards, if adopted by CAEP as is expected, will shift the accreditation process from ane that is largely input-based to one that focuses on outcomes. Iii major changes illustrate this:

  • Accrediting programs based on the impact their teachers have on pupil learning. The new standards explicitly crave that teacher-grooming programs demonstrate that their teachers contribute to "an expected level of pupil growth," which must include all available growth measures required by the state in which the program operates. This ways that, if a state chooses to collect value-added measures of student growth, programs will be held accountable for the touch on their graduates have as teachers in the classroom. No longer volition it be acceptable for a plan to merits that information technology can't command what happens when its teacher-trainees go into the field.
  • Requiring programs to report annually on a range of result measures.For the first fourth dimension, teacher-training programs will be required to provide yearly data on the bear upon their teachers are having. This data will include student-achievement measures, surveys of schoolhouse districts (the employers), the power of teachers to meet state licensing standards, and even student-loan default rates. The annual reporting of this data will serve as a de facto "Consumer Study" carte that prospective teaching candidates (and others) can use to identify which programs are training slap-up teachers – and which ones are not.
  • Raising the bar for entry into the profession.Compared to other professional fields, such as medicine or constabulary, U.S. colleges of education have had much lower standards for admission into their programs. Somewhat paradoxically, to increase prestige and attract more talent into the field of teaching, we need to make it tougher to become a teacher. Appropriately, the new standard states that "the average grade point boilerplate of [a program's] accustomed cohort of candidates meets or exceeds … three.0." Similarly, CAEP will require that (in the short term) the average score of a program's cohort on the Deed, Sat or GRE be in the height 50% – and this volition rising to the top 33% by 2020. Virtually every other high-performing educational activity nation makes it challenging to enter the teaching profession, and now the U.South. is poised to join them.

As a member of the CAEP Commission who helped craft these standards, I am understandably biased in their favor. Simply I am not blind to the serious challenges that remain ahead – nor do I retrieve these new standards are a panacea. As with the Common Core, the success of the CAEP standards will plow upon implementation. Indeed, there are serious obstacles ahead, peculiarly given the diverseness in type and quality of data that can be collected on programs. And I would accept gone further in attaching specific points to each of the standards to create a simple, transparent process that would take identified the specific strengths and weaknesses within a program (similar to the LEED dark-green building certification arrangement). Yet I also recognize that transforming institutions of higher educational activity will have time and require a deep cultural shift that cannot happen overnight. I believe that CAEP'south new standards are a skilful offset pace toward transforming the field of educator training in the U.South.

The question for California'southward colleges of education, and its Committee on Teacher Credentialing (CTC), is whether programs in the state volition embrace CAEP'southward standards. The credentialing commission bears ultimate authority in approving educator-preparation programs in this state and, under a somewhat convoluted land law, California has historically treated national accreditation as an acceptable substitute for state accreditation. Will the credentialing committee go on to follow this policy? The early on signs are troubling. I was disheartened, for example, to see credentialing commission Chair Linda Darling-Hammond immediately reject any interest in learning from the recent instructor-prep plan rankings issued by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ).

The fence over NCTQ'south methodology has obscured the perhaps more salient fact that NCTQ's standards are in fact very similar to what CAEP demands. Both NCTQ and CAEP call for more rigorous selectivity, strong content and skills preparation – I'd argue NCTQ's standards may fifty-fifty exist superior to CAEP'south in this regard, given the emphasis NCTQ places on Common Core – and both focus on educatee-learning outcomes. Perchance this is why CAEP President Jim Cibulka, in dissimilarity to Darling-Hammond, offered but muted criticism of NCTQ's report, mostly related to the transparency (or lack thereof) of its effort, rather than the substance of its standards.

There is growing interest within education policymaking circles to ameliorate our nation's educator preparation programs. I promise that California's institutions of teacher training, and the governmental entities that oversee them, embrace CAEP's new, higher, outcomes-driven standards. Information technology is fourth dimension to raise the bar, make accreditation meaningful, close low-performing programs and expand those that demonstrate excellence through their bear upon on student learning.

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Benjamin Riley is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at NewSchools Venture Fund, a nonprofit organization that supports education entrepreneurs. He also currently serves equally a commissioner on the Quango for Accreditation of Educator Preparation Commission, the body charged with promulgating new national standards for accreditation of educator-training programs.

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