Arthur Levine, until recently the President of Teacher’s College, Columbia University, has released a report, Educating School Teachers.

Some of its conclusions are on target, and NCATE agrees with many of the report’s recommendations. NCATE has been working during the past decade to move many of the same goals forward. NCATE’s method of doing so is through the development and implementation of performance-based accreditation standards, focused on candidate ability to teach and the effect on P-12 student learning.

However, some conclusions and recommendations in the report bear an uncertain relationship to the case studies and research upon which they were based. The report was published without the benefit of formal oversight or peer review.

Perhaps most disturbing is the report’s implicit elitism. The author deplores the fact that the majority of teachers in America are prepared at less selective institutions. We might all wish that elite institutions would produce a more significant share of America’s teachers but, given the economics of higher education and the teaching profession, that has never occurred in the past, nor does it appear likely to happen anytime in the foreseeable future.  See table. The sad truth is that teacher education is not an important part of the mission at some elite institutions. Eighty percent of those preparing to be classroom teachers are prepared at public institutions, with most at regional state colleges and universities. They do not attend elite institutions, nor do they spend over $160,000 in four years, in order to prepare for a job that pays $30,000 per year.

The report says that some selective institutions do not seek NCATE accreditation. It does not mention that NCATE is voluntary, despite frequent favorable references to the (mandatory) accreditation of the established professions. The report fails to recognize that three of the five U.S. News top ranked schools (Vanderbilt, Stanford, and Teachers College, Columbia University) are NCATE accredited, as are a majority of the rest. Of the 188 doctoral degree granting institutions that offer teacher preparation, two-thirds of them are NCATE accredited.

As long as accreditation in teacher education is voluntary, some schools, including selective schools and weak schools, are free to opt out. As long as public policy, the profession, and professional schools are willing to settle for voluntary professional accountability, some schools will opt out. Though Levine deplores the use of education schools as “cash cows” for the university, he fails to see the connection to mandatory accreditation requirements which generally require investments to meet standards.

The Levine report does not acknowledge the impact of NCATE on the author’s institution. To meet NCATE’s new performance-based standards, Teachers College needed to make a number of changes in its practices. According to A. Lin Goodwin, Associate Dean, Teacher Education and School-based Support Services at Teachers College, Columbia University , NCATE accreditation helped Teachers College accomplish the following major reforms focusing on candidate and P-12 student learning:

“We now have a set of common standards as a foundation for our teacher preparation programs, and have increased communication across programs.

We were able to articulate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions all our teacher candidates [should have].

We designed an assessment system conceptually connected to standards for candidate performance, which included developing instruments, supporting faculty, and offering training workshops.

We have created a centralized database that will allow us to document candidate work and keep track of future changes and progress.

As we have become much more specific and transparent about student learning goals and outcomes, candidates have, in turn, acquired a more concrete understanding of program expectations.” (Quality Teaching, Spring 2006)

Teachers College did achieve NCATE accreditation in fall 2005.

The report ignores the fact that NCATE’s new standards are so demanding that many institutions have failed to meet them. From Spring 2002 through Spring 2006, NCATE reviewed 620 institutions. Four hundred ninety, or 77 percent, received a clear accreditation decision. One hundred thirty, or 23 percent, failed to meet all standards and received conditional or probationary decisions, or were denied accreditation.

The faculty view of NCATE in this report (“…the deans were positive about their NCATE experience, indicating it was useful to their institution and…led to programmatic improvements” p. 66) reinforces NCATE’s 2005 survey of deans of accredited institutions. Ninety-five percent of the deans say that their candidates benefit by attending an NCATE accredited institution; 84 percent say that using the NCATE standards has helped their programs to increase their focus on candidate learning.

Further, Levine acknowledges the 1999 ETS study in which ETS concluded that graduates of NCATE institutions pass licensing examinations at a higher rate, thus producing a higher percentage of graduates who meet state requirements.

The report is contradictory. It criticizes NCATE based on the accreditation decision of just one institution, when institutions were not expected to fully meet NCATE’s performance-based standards. Otherwise, the report lauds only NCATE institutions. Levine’s staff visited 28 institutions, of which 16 were NCATE accredited. The four exemplary teacher education programs featured, and every other program mentioned favorably by name was an NCATE institution.

A very different picture of education school prospects emerges from Linda Darling-Hammond’s Powerful Teacher Education: Lessons from Exemplary Programs (2006) San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons. Darling-Hammond, perhaps the most prominent scholar of teacher education in the Nation, examines some of the same exemplary institutions and reaches far more optimistic conclusions of the potential for teacher education and its professional accrediting agency.

NCATE now accredits 623 institutions which produce two-thirds of the nation’s new teacher graduates, and 93 have applied for accreditation. The value of NCATE has been affirmed by over 700 institutions, 50 state teacher education authorities, and, now, Levine’s NWEA data.

To read the full text of the Teachers College, Columbia University article on NCATE, visit this link and click on Spring 2006 newsletter.

To read institutional testimonials on NCATE,  please visit here.

 Response of Sharon P. Robinson, President and CEO, AACTE to Levine report on teacher education

NEA President Reg Weaver’s statement on Levine report

 Ed Caffarella, Dean, SUNY-Cortland School of Education