Controlling Requirements for Entry and Licensing

Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP)

The national accrediting body for educator preparation programs that utilizes peer review and evidence-based accreditation. continue to advocate for a reduction in required education courses and challenge the notion that teacher-preparation programs provide a knowledge base that equips novice teachers with the expertise to be professional educators.7

There are education scholars who contend the knowledge base for beginning teachers does exist and can be incorporated into teacher-education curricula.8 Additionally, educators have worked to incorporate a developing professional knowledge base into a set of national performance standards that are now being used to hold teachereducation institutions accountable. The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Prepa-

ration (CAEP) has adopted standards that determine which teacher-education programs comply with national standards in the preparation of teaching candidates and specialists about to enter the classroom. These new accrediting standards will require documentation evidence of teacher-preparation program graduates’ teaching skills and impact on PK–12 student learning.9 Prior to the formation of CAEP, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) were the accrediting agencies for teacher-education programs. By the standards NCATE and TEAC used (predecessors to the new CAEP standards), only 791of the 1,624 educator-preparation providers (49 percent) were accredited.10 Going forward, with one accrediting body, CAEP, implementing and monitoring compliance with standards widely believed to be more rigorous than earlier ones, the theory is that teacher preparation programs will be more professional in educating teachers for the real world classrooms.11

2-1b Controlling Requirements for Entry and Licensing

Whereas most professions have uniform requirements for entry and licensing, teaching historically has lacked such requirements because each of the fifty states sets its own certification requirements, which vary from state to state. As indicated in Chapter 1, Motivation, Preparation, and Conditions for the Entering Teacher, prospective teachers in most states are required to pass minimum competency tests in reading, writing, and math; graduate from an approved teacher-education program; complete an internship experience; and possess a bachelor’s degree. Furthermore, over the past quarter of a century, National Board Certification has been implemented through the independent National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) for the purpose of awarding additional teaching certification to master teachers beyond initial state certification. You might want to research the qualifications and testing required for certification in your state to compare with others nearby.

If teacher certification is to verify professional skills and knowledge, it is unfortunate that some reports suggest a significant number of secondary-school teachers appear to be teaching out of license—in other words, outside their certified areas of expertise. This is a problem in the core academic subjects—English, social studies,

7Linda Darling-Hammond, “Teacher Education and the American Future,” Journal of Teacher Education (January 2010), pp. 35–47; A. Lin Goodwin, “Response to Section II: What’s Needed Now: Professional Development Schools and the Professionalization of Teaching” in Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 2011); and Jal Mehta, “Teachers: Will We Ever Learn,” The New York Times (April 12, 2013). 8Linda Darling-Hammond and John Bransford, eds., Preparing Teacher for a Changing World, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005). 9“AACTE Celebrates Approval of New Professional Accreditation Standards” (September 3, 2013) at http://aacte.org/news-room/press-releases-statements/154-aacte-celebrates -approval (January 6, 2015). 10“Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, Annual Report to the Public, the States, Policymakers, and the Education Profession, (Washington, DC: Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, 2013). 11“AACTE Celebrates Approval of New Professional Accreditation Standards” (September 3, 2013) at http://aacte.org/news-room/press-releases-statements/154-aacte-celebrates -approval (January 6, 2015).