Last week, the two national accreditation bodies for teacher preparation programs?NCATE and TEAC?voted to standardize their accreditation processes and ultimately merge into a single organization. Organization leaders assert that the goal of the merger is not only to set clearer requirements for ed school accreditation, but also to raise the bar for programs entirely. NCATE leaders have also just announced an initiative to turn teacher preparation ?upside down.? Whether these reforms actually do improve teacher quality is yet to be seen, but it's about time NCATE and TEAC reevaluate their modus operandi. According to our survey of education professors?the very personnel who staff schools of education?only 7 percent believe that current NCATE or TEAC accreditation guarantees that a program is top-notch. Instead, 46 percent believe accreditation to be a base-line of acceptable quality, and 41 percent that it ensures very little other than procedural compliance.
?Janie Scull
