Silver City, NM – School of Education Dean Dr. Patricia Manzanares-Gonzales has been named as a member of a high profile national commission to raise standards for teacher preparation across the nation. Inorder to help ensure that every classroom in the nation has an effective teacher, a national Commission on Standards and Performance Reporting will develop rigorous accreditation standards for educator preparation that willraise the bar for preparation providers, the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) announced. CAEP is the new accrediting body being formed through the unification of two organizations charged with assuring quality in educator preparation – the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC).
The Commission will ensure increased accountability through a focus on outcome data and key program characteristic data. CAEP has pledged to use multiple measures in its evaluation system, including new sources of data from state longitudinal databases. CAEP standards will alsogive increased attention to recruiting and admissions to help ensure a supply of candidates who are motivated to enter the teaching workforce, have characteristics associated with teaching success, and who are prepared in areas which they are needed. CAEP will expect accredited preparation providers totake bold steps to recruit, prepare, and help develop effective teachers who can contribute their expertise to improving student performance in all schools.
“This is an honor and a responsibility to the entireeducation profession: local, state, national and international. NCATE has taken a role in international accreditation of initial and advanced educator preparation programs. WNMU successfully met all NCATE standards during our April 2011 reaccreditation visit,” said Dr. Manzanares-Gonzales. “Given my expertise in institution and unit accreditation, I am excited to have this opportunity to represent New Mexico, the southwest, and state colleges and universities across the nation. In the national discourse on accountability, the voices of rural and diverse populations are often not represented. This commission membership will allow me to represent these diverse constituencies and concerns.”
CAEP believes that all educator providers should be subject to the same high standards of quality. To make this possible, one of the tasks of the Commission is to ensure accreditation standards are appropriate for all preparation providers. In the past, accreditation standards have been geared specifically to higher education institutions.
The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, to become operational in 2012, will accredit over 900 teacher education institutions across the nation, producing approximately 175,000 graduates annually. For more information, see CAEP updates at www.ncate.org or www.caepsite.org.