Content standards, which describe what K–12 students should "know and be able to do," have now been developed in most of the major subject areas. What kind of preparation does a teacher need to be successful in helping students attain these challenging content standards? And how can one assure that the preparation and performance of these teachers-to-be meets professional standards?
The National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE)—the organization that accredits schools, departments, and colleges of education—has launched a project we hope will result in much stronger alignment between student content standards and the standards for the educators who teach them.
As one piece of our "New Professional Teacher" project, NCATE has decided to apply performance-based standards to the competencies that preservice teachers should be expected to master in the subjects they plan to teach. These performance-based standards for teacher preparation would be aligned with the content standards that are to guide instruction for students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Moreover, they are to be consistent with state licensing requirements for new teachers and with standards that the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is developing to certify highly accomplished teachers. The initial phase of NCATE's standards work will involve standards for programs preparing elementary teachers.
The goal of NCATE's project is the continuing development and use of professional standards to redesign teacher education, thus helping create a system of quality assurance that will embrace accreditation, licensing, and advanced certification. NCATE will provide national leadership, but much of the focus of the project will be at the state level, where so many crucial decisions about education are made.
Confronting the Issues
- The lack of consensus on content standards for students. The curriculum standards developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics are generally held up as the model for other subject areas in the curriculum. They have achieved their fame because of what is in them, but they also enjoyed the political support of highly visible leaders such as Colorado Governor Roy Romer, who chaired the National Education Goals Panel.But none of the other standards documents has been so generally accepted by teachers, policy leaders, textbook publishers, or test writers. A proposal to establish a national entity to review and spur acceptance of the content standards never left the drawing board. So states and local districts will establish their own curriculum standards, with differences sure to emerge from one place to another. How will NCATE's performance-based standards project—and other alignment efforts—deal with this American phenomenon of state sovereignty in education? The lack of consensus on student standards clearly challenges a basic assumption of NCATE's efforts.However, the projects undertaken by the NBPTS and the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC), which is developing standards or principles to guide initial licensing of teachers, suggest that NCATE's effort will find sufficient consensus to move forward. These projects have taken a similar tack: they made use of the work of the national curriculum standards groups, examined the standards created by states and localities for their own use, and—using their best judgment—began establishing the standards for licensure and advanced certification.
- Determining what "performance-based" means in an accreditation setting. In the context of national standards for students, and for teachers seeking advanced certification (for example, through the NBPTS), a "performance standard" clearly addresses the performance of an individual. Typically such a standard includes the criteria by which to judge whether a standard has been met.But how can such a concept be adapted to determine whether teacher preparation programs meet high standards? Conducting a direct evaluation of the knowledge and skills of new teacher candidates would duplicate activities states conduct for teacher licensure. Moreover, it would raise a host of issues about the appropriate characteristics, validity, and costs of assessments. A second approach would draw on such measures as the record of teacher candidates passing state licensure requirements or the success of program graduates in eventually gaining NBPTS certification.Another possibility is to judge whether the institution itself makes use of student performance measures. Yet another option would be to consider both the performance of the new teacher candidates and the performance of the institution in making an accreditation decision.Those fearing any prescription of what constitutes a "good teacher education program" might dismiss these ideas. But, over time we may gain greater confidence about the features of teacher preparation that are consistently associated with new teachers who have acquired the knowledge and skills that standards-based American classrooms demand.The meaning of "performance" as a basis for standards is a crucial question for NCATE. In fact, one could argue that the real meaning of NCATE standards is found not in the printed words, but in the actions taken to apply them. That is, how do we judge whether performance standards described in NCATE's guidelines have been met? How do institutions describe performance in their response to NCATE curriculum guidelines? Ultimately, how are accreditation examiners and reviewers personally assessing performance? How consistently are the standards applied? These are questions we'll wrestle with as we try to define "performance-based" in an accrediting organization.
- Determining the role of curriculum guidelines in a performance-based environment. NCATE currently works with 17 specialized professional associations that produce teacher preparation curriculum guidelines in content areas. NCATE's standards for accreditation require schools of education to use these teacher preparation guidelines in the design and delivery of their programs.These sets of guidelines, now totaling more than 40, cover both initial preparation and advanced levels, specific curriculum areas for various grade spans, administration, special education, school psychology, library and media specialists, and computer science and technology. (They do not include the arts, foreign languages, or English as a second language, which are not currently represented under NCATE membership.)The issue is whether these separate guidelines represent the best approach to assuring rigorous content in teacher preparation specialties. How much specialization is needed? What effect do the guidelines have on institutions? How can they contribute to state licensure assessments? Again, NCATE is studying the experience of organizations with related responsibilities. The NBPTS, for example, is using a framework based on developmental ages of children. INTASC licensure standards, by contrast, use board content areas as the basic building blocks. These precedents deserve consideration as NCATE's standards development project is launched.
Your Input Sought
The NCATE standards development project is a complex endeavor and can benefit from the contributions of many education leaders.
NCATE will conduct focus groups to help shape our path, and we'll form working groups and commission papers. But we also want you to join NCATE in considering these important issues.
