Washington, D.C. – Institutions applying for or seeking to continue NCATE accreditation will use web-based forms to submit reports on individual programs of study within colleges of education beginning this fall. This new way of reporting also coincides with a change in evidence required to determine the quality of the program. The change, approved by NCATE’s Executive Board in early May, streamlines and adds increased consistency to this part of the NCATE accreditation process by using aggregated performance data gathered on all candidates in a program.

For each program that prepares educators to work in P-12 settings, institutions must identify assessments that address the standards for that program.They will also submit the scoring guides or criteria used to measure candidate performance on the assessment, and a table with the aggregated results of the assessments. The assessments should provide comprehensive measures of candidate content knowledge, knowledge about teaching and learning, and candidateeffects on student learning.

Assessments included on the program report must be taken by all candidates in the program. These common measures across programs, a new feature of the review process, will increase consistency of the data NCATE receives on programs.

Institutions will submit data for the most recent three years and are expected to provide the percentage of candidates achieving at each level identified in the scoring guides.
The data should answer the following questions:

- Have candidates mastered the necessary knowledge for the job they will perform?
- Do candidates meet the state licensure requirements?
- Do candidates understand and plan their teaching or other professional education responsibilities?
- Can candidates implement their plan with students and colleagues?
- Are candidates effective in promoting student learning in their schools/districts?

On the web-based report, a specialty association’s standards are organized into three different areas of NCATE Unit Standard 1: (1) content knowledge, (2) pedagogical and professional knowledge, skills, and dispositions, and (3) effects on student learning. Likewise, the assessments are grouped into these three areas. This way, information from the program reports feeds directly into NCATE’s Unit Standard 1, which states that candidates know the subject matter they plan to teach and how to teach it effectively so that students learn.

Examples of assessments relating to content knowledge for many of the program standards include comprehensive examinations, portfolios of candidate work, or research reports. If the content major and/or GPA is used, they must be accompanied by a description of the alignment of course content with the specialty program standards, and with the criteria for the grades.In the case of state licensing content examinations, at least 80 percent of the candidates must pass to achieve national recognition of the program.

An example of an assessment relating to the pedagogical and professional knowledge standards for most if not all of the program areas would be the assessment instrument used for student teaching/internship, along with the scoring guides. Other assessments include candidate portfolios, case studies, lesson plans, research projects, intervention plans, and field experiences.

Examples of assessments that demonstrate effect on P-12 student learning include employer surveys, teacher work samples, case studies, follow-up studies, portfolio tasksand test results. Institutions will select their key common assessments, implement them, and report the data for the accreditation process.

“This change will help NCATE reviewers, teams and boards as they work to ensure consistent accreditation actions. The use of the technology also streamlines the process for the institutions and reviewers, so multiple benefits accrue to all involved in the process,” says Arthur E. Wise, NCATE President.

NCATE appointed a task force eighteen months ago to develop recommendations for streamlining the program review portion of the accreditation process. Alan Farstrup, Executive Director of the International Reading Association, chaired the task force, which brought its recommendations to NCATE’s Executive Board. The Board approved the new process at its May 7, 2004 meeting.

For a particular program at an institution to be nationally recognized, the institution must show that candidates are meeting the professional standards of the relevant specialty association whose standards have been approved by NCATE. There are 19 such associations; these include the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), Council of Exceptional Children (CEC), and the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP).

Please visit the NCATE member associations.