Commission Recommends Elevating Standards for Teacher Preparation - Higher Education:... The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), the newly formed national teacher education accrediting body, assembled the 28-member commission of educators who represent P-12 and higher education. The CAEP board is expected to vote this summer on the recommendations.
The standards, considered among the most far-reaching for the field and contentious, will overhaul how teacher preparation is done, said CAEP officials. Standards that boost requirements for student selection, for example, and that are based on evidence, continuous improvement, innovation and clinical practice are what the field needs to ensure that high-quality, well-educated teachers are teaching all children, said CAEP President James Cibulka. However, a group of deans representing the historically Black colleges and universities of teacher education, say they are not so sure. They have maintained that raising the bar on admissions, for example, may “exacerbate the shortage of teachers from underrepresented groups and result in teaching becoming a profession of privilege, which would be a tremendous disservice to the growing number of children, especially those from underrepresented ethnic groups and/or who live in poverty.”
