Despite widespread agreement over the importance of effective teachers, higher education remains divided over how to prove that teaching programs are producing them.
The latest evidence: the emergence of a new accreditation group, the Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation, or AAQEP, seeking to give teacher-preparation programs its stamp of approval.
The group鈥檚 recent launch鈥攊ts website debuted last month鈥攊s a surprise to some who鈥檇 spent years working toward unifying the teacher education field under a common set of expectations.
AAQEP is moving to capture market share quickly. It has already been approved in Hawaii to pilot its approach and has held discussions with several other states. It plans to release standards for public review by January and begin conducting reviews later in 2018.
AAQEP鈥檚 rise comes less than a decade after two accreditors for teacher preparation merged into a single body, known as the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation.
鈥淭his has all been done. Two accreditors didn鈥檛 work really well,鈥� said CAEP鈥檚 president, Christopher A. Koch, a former Illinois state education superintendent. 鈥淎 single set of standards for the profession is important.鈥�
Many of the new group鈥檚 advisers formerly worked for CAEP or served on its panels.
What looks like a bureaucratic squabble at first glance contains deeper meaning, observers say: Divisions persist about how accreditors should ensure that teachers graduating from teacher education programs are classroom-ready.
鈥淐onceptually, teacher prep has been in a state of paralysis for some time now,鈥� said Barmak Nassirian, the director of federal relations and policy analysis for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. 鈥淭his whole issue of quality assurance and accreditation is proving particularly vexing for them in ways that are historically surprising, because obviously teaching has been around for a long time.鈥�
Two Become One
The last half-century has seen any number of attempts to improve the quality of teacher-preparation programs nationally. Among the most recent was a set of Obama-era regulations requiring states to rate their educator-preparation programs, which President Donald Trump has since scrapped.
National accreditation of teacher programs, though voluntary in most states, has been the field鈥檚 attempt at self-policing: About 900 of the country鈥檚 roughly 2,100 different providers participate; most of them are traditional schools and departments of education at colleges and universities.
In 2010, two former accreditors united to create CAEP, in what was billed as an attempt to unify the diffuse field.
CAEP鈥檚 subsequent history is tortuous. Colleges pushed back on new requirements for teacher-candidates鈥� grade point averages and for collecting information on how newly minted teachers perform in the field.
CAEP later introduced some flexibility into those standards, but also slimmed down the number of ways programs could demonstrate that they met them. Initially, it offered three separate routes鈥攁n attempt to appease supporters of both predecessor groups鈥攂ut about a year ago, under Koch, CAEP narrowed those down to just one pathway.
That caused some former CAEP supporters to sour on the process.
鈥淲hen CAEP formed, there was still choice initially,鈥� said David Cantaffa, an assistant provost for educator preparation for the State University of New York, who is on a working group for AAQEP. When the pathways 鈥渄windled to one, there was no more choice.鈥�
More Choice?
Indeed, one of AAQEP鈥檚 selling points appears to respond to the call for more options.
AAQEP鈥檚 new standards will have some 鈥渂right lines鈥� on things like teachers鈥� content knowledge, but they will also give programs room to show how they鈥檙e being innovative within their local context. This could mean giving more flexibility in showing, for instance, how they鈥檙e working with local school districts to devise field experiences for would-be teachers and working to improve the diversity of the profession, said Mark LaCelle-Peterson, the president of AAQEP.
鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to crack this problem of supporting and fostering innovation, and that鈥檚 been hard within accreditation,鈥� he said. 鈥淗ow do you have a common system for accreditation nationally when the solutions to problems in education are intensely local?鈥�
AAQEP advisers also say they want the process to be more supportive earlier in the review cycle, perhaps by drawing from improvement science.
鈥淲e鈥檙e thinking about how can we use the standards to involve educator-preparation programs early and really collaborate with them to self-identify areas for improvement and strengths,鈥� said Joseph Lubig, the associate dean of the education school at Northern Michigan University, who co-chairs the panel devising AAQEP鈥檚 processes. 鈥淲e鈥檙e really trying to bring that personalized, contextualized approach.鈥�
CAEP officials aren鈥檛 convinced that kind of flexibility is the answer to bettering schools of education.
鈥淲e understand people like choices and I think that鈥檚 fine to a degree, provided those choices mean something in terms of the preparation of teachers,鈥� said Koch, CAEP鈥檚 president. 鈥淚f you put in 鈥榓ccreditation-light鈥� versions, it鈥檚 going to be a problem.鈥�
He and other observers note that AAQEP was largely, though not exclusively, formed by people with ties to one of the groups that preceded CAEP, known as the Teacher Education Accreditation Council, or TEAC; indeed, LaCelle-Peterson was its president at one point.
TEAC favored a looser, 鈥渋nquiry-based鈥� process in which teaching programs laid out their goals and vision and were audited on how well they met them. Some describe it as akin to the process for writing a dissertation. CAEP now puts a heavier focus on collecting evidence, including by tracking new teachers after they graduate. But colleges say that can be burdensome and costly.
鈥淎AQEP is an effort to bring back inquiry into the process of accreditation,鈥� said Cantaffa. 鈥淭here are unsettled questions in terms of assessing program candidates. ... You can鈥檛 in my mind demand that programs offer evidence in relation to unsettled questions. What you can do is set up a system for exploring what might be good evidence.鈥�
Choice, though, can have a downside. Historically, colleges have sought out the accreditor they think will give them the most favorable treatment, noted Chad Aldeman, a consultant at Bellwether Education Partners, who worked on the Obama-era teacher regulations.
In the higher education space broadly, 鈥渋nstitutions can shop around for the accreditor they want,鈥� Aldeman said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a messy field.鈥�
Meanwhile, CAEP only last year began requiring all programs to meet its new standards. Of the approximately 50 colleges it鈥檚 reviewed, CAEP has revoked accreditation twice and denied it once. That makes CAEP tougher than previous accreditors, said Koch.
Field Reaction
AAQEP鈥檚 rise has also created waves in the insular teacher-preparation field. At least two individuals who are helping write the new group鈥檚 expectations recently sat on CAEP鈥檚 accreditation council and had to resign based on conflict-of-interest rules.
And LaCelle-Peterson and his two colleagues at AAQEP all left the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, the field鈥檚 main membership association, this summer. AACTE said it could not comment on personnel matters. But that group, under its former leader, Sharon P. Robinson, strongly favored a single accreditor.
AACTE also said it would not offer comments on the new group until after a board of directors meeting later this month.
Though AAQEP is still finalizing its standards and processes, one detail is not in question: its fees. The group鈥檚 website lists its services and rates for accreditation, which are generally comparable to CAEP鈥檚.
The group is seeking recognition from the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, which approves accrediting agencies, as well as from the U.S. Department of Education. (CAEP is recognized by the former but not the latter.)
