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The Journal of Teacher Education (JTE), as a service to its readers, published a mini-symposium of three articles in the fall of 2005 for the purpose of illuminating the issues that seemingly divide the NCATE and TEAC approaches to the accreditation of the nation’s teacher education programs. The mini-symposium was invented by the JTE editors on the somewhat unprecedented
condition that the journal's acceptance of an article by TEAC be on the
condition that a solicited response from NCATE and an article from a neutral third- party appear with the TEAC article.
The three JTE articles are presented here on TEAC’s web site, along with the JTE editor’s introduction, to stimulate further consideration of the two approaches to accreditation and to provoke improvement in both systems.
Some additional introductory commentary, however, is needed because the editors of JTE were unable to follow through with their initial intention of providing TEAC with a reciprocal opportunity to respond to the NCATE article. On the whole, the differences in the two systems are clearly set out, particularly in the Tamir and Wilson article, but there still are some points that require clarification and correction.
It should be noted that the Wise article gives absolutely no sign of accepting TEAC’s overture to build a new unified or integrated accreditation system other than to simply assert that “NCATE is the teaching profession’s vehicle” for building a profession of teaching and that disputes should be brought to, and resolved at, its table. Apparently, the building of a unified system that includes any other stakeholders is a long way off. By setting itself apart as the only true accrediting body for teacher education, despite TEAC’s recognition and acceptance by growing numbers in the profession, including some that are currently members of NCATE, NCATE regrettably shuts itself off from the very consensus building discussion it claims to see as the foundation of any profession.
There is no disagreement from TEAC with the NCATE view that professions are built on consensus about the essential knowledge, skills, and disposition that are required for professional practice. A difference between TEAC and NCATE, however, is the nature of that consensus – whether it is a political consensus or a scholarly consensus. NCATE sees the way ahead as one of “forging additional consensus” (p. 319), but it is one that is inherently political, which is why TEAC is construed as a threat to it, rather than a contributor to it. TEAC would see the way ahead differently -- as one of inquiry that leads to the discovery and invention of information that would resolve the many conflicts within the field that hold teaching back as a true profession. This is a “chicken and egg” dilemma to some extent and it is about whether scholarly consensus provides the foundation for a political consensus sufficient to warrant the authority claimed by the learned professions, or whether it is the other way around in which the politically powerful can claim the authority on the basis of their positions. A key difference between TEAC and NCATE seems to be precisely on these different connotations of consensus. The difference in the end is one of timing and who is invited to form the consensus, not trivial issues, but not seismic either.
More than political consensus is needed for a profession, however. An analysis of how medicine was transformed from an occupation associated with barbering to the prototype of a modern profession would undoubtedly give a priority to the seasoned and verified knowledge base that medical and public health scholars formulated. This was what enabled the political consensus described in the Wise article. If professionalism were merely a matter of political will and consensus, the trades (plumbing, electrician, etc.) would be professions owing to the consensus in their union and state licensing regulations, which control who enters and practices the occupation, how they can practice it, and what they need to know to practice it.
What holds teaching back is that the skills necessary to do it seem readily available and accessible to any college graduate, not just those in teacher education, just as the skills for house-painting, chauffeuring, etc. are similarly available to novices, and just as the skills of the even more demanding trades, like plumbing and wiring, are readily accessible to “handy-men” and contractors in rural areas who often do it all. These analogies are imperfect to be sure, but it is an open question whether teaching can eventually claim a place as a learned profession through the mere consensus about the content of the teacher education curriculum by the stakeholders that make up NCATE, or whether it requires the kind of evidence-producing initiatives called for in the TEAC accreditation process about whether the graduates can actually teach effectively. It is a legitimate point of difference between NCATE and TEAC, but only in the theory of action of the two organizations, not in the accreditation standards or process itself or in the capacity of either system to identify quality teacher education.
The Wise article reports an internal inconsistency in the TEAC stance on state standards (p. 310), namely, that they are uneven and mere hypotheses on the one hand, but then as sufficient for the program’s claims on the other. This apparent discrepancy is easily resolved by an important higher order principle in TEAC – the claims the program seeking accreditation makes about its students’ accomplishments must be fully consistent with the claims the program makes elsewhere (e.g., to its state, in Title II reporting, on its web site, in its publications) and fully consistent with the proposition that the graduates are competent, caring, and qualified to be beginning teachers, and finally with the requirements of TEAC’s Quality Principle I. This higher-order consistency requirement in the TEAC system, overlooked in the Wise article, does minimize the differences between TEAC and NCATE with regard to what the graduates are expected to know and do and places limits on the freedom Wise alleges TEAC programs otherwise enjoy.
The Wise article sees the TEAC governance structure as out-of-line with general accreditation governance practices. Most accreditation governing boards are self-perpetuating, like TEAC’s; very few governing boards permit, as NCATE does, a constituent member organization to appoint one of its own as a governing board member, and still fewer sell seats on their boards to constituent members with the result that member organizations with greater financial resources have more seats and voting power than those with less. The buying of voting influence is rarely thought to be a sound practice
Wise makes a fair point, however, about law accreditation; while there are in fact two law organizations recognized as accreditors (one by CHEA and other by USDE), only one is a true accreditor as he points out in the footnote on pages 330-331. TEAC’s point was only to show, even if the analogy were strained, that two accreditors in the same field can cooperate and to provide a base for an integrated evaluation, a point NCATE apparently thought was worth challenging with regard to teacher education.
There are two points in the Wise article that seem to be based on slight misreadings of TEAC’s policies. On page 328, Wise suggests that meeting state standards is sufficient for TEAC accreditation, which would make it merely duplicative of state program approval. TEAC’s point was not sufficiently clear. While some TEAC principles and standards can and have been met with evidence that the state’s standards are met, the majority of TEAC’s standards cannot be met this way. Similarly on page 320, the TEAC audit is interpreted as the whole of the TEAC process, when it is only one part. Wise implies that knowing that the evidence is trustworthy and accurate, something not known in the NCATE program review, provides the TEAC or its Accreditation Panel and Accreditation Committee with no means to independently evaluate the sufficiency of the evidence presented in the program’s materials. The Panel and Committee have what every accreditor has, but they have the advantage of knowing it has been verified and is accurate.
Finally, Eran Tamir and Suzanne Wilson article raises a concern, shared by TEAC as well, that the emphasis on empirical or scientific evidence may be unduly restrictive and inflexible for the purposes of accreditation and program improvement. This is a valid point, and one reason TEAC calls the self-study an Inquiry Brief and not a Scientific Inquiry Brief or an Evidence Brief. This is why TEAC speaks only of the evidence the faculty rely on to support their claims of their graduates’ competence without prejudice as to a particular kind of evidence (quantitative versus qualitative, for example). The faculty members in programs seeking TEAC accreditation are encouraged to bring forward what they truly rely on so long as it meets any scholarly test of evidence. Their point is well-taken all the same.
Frank B. Murray
President, the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC)
Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. 56, No. 4, September/October 2005
Teacher education, an update, Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Editor
Studying teacher education, what we know and need to know, Marilyn Cochran-Smith
On building a unified system of accreditation in teacher education, Frank B. Murray
Establishing teaching as a profession, the essential role of professional accreditation, Arthur E. Wise
Who should guard the gates? Evidentiary and judiciary warrants for claiming jurisdiction, Eran Timir and Suzanne M. Wilson
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