February 4, 2012
TECHNOS QUARTERLY Fall 1999 Vol. 8 No. 3
Interview with Arthur E. Wise
with Carole Novak
Art
Wise is president of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education
(NCATE) in Washington, D.C. During his career, he has worked toward teacher
quality and professionalism, school finance reform, and the advancement of
educational research. At NCATE, he has directed the implementation of rigorous
standards and procedures and led efforts to develop a system of quality assurance
for the teaching profession. Mr.Wise is a member of the National Board for
Professional Teaching Standards, the National Commission on Teaching and America's
Future, the Advisory Commission on Education Statistics, and the Council for
Excellence in Government. With education experts projecting that over the
next 10 years the United States will need two million new teachers in its
classrooms, and states raising their licensing standards in an effort to raise
the quality of teachers, NCATE under Mr. Wise's direction has sought to strengthen
the accreditation standards for colleges of education that offer teacher preparation
programs. TECHNOS spoke with Mr. Wise about the new NCATE 2000 standards,
which focus on performance and require the utilization of technology.
NCATE has 33 member organizations. Does it derive its authority from these members?
Yes. These 33 member organizations comprise NCATE. Members of these organizations — from chief state school officers to teachers — sit on NCATE boards and evaluate schools of education. Professional organizations join together to constitute the accreditation organization. But we also have 500 accredited institutions. In this respect, we are like other professional accrediting bodies, so we're not unusual. We are rather like medical, legal, and architectural accreditation.
I see. In terms of developing standards, for instance NCATE 2000, does that come from the leadership of your group or the member organizations?
Well, it comes from boards and committees that work on standards. Now, of course over half of the people who work on our boards and committees do work in higher education as professors, deans, and university leaders.
Does that necessarily guarantee that their institutions will abide by the rules?
Not necessarily, no. That's a whole other set of questions!
That's what I'm wondering: how exactly does it work? What if an institution decides not to comply with the standards for accreditation?
Well, then it will cease to be accredited — that's how it works. But we set standards through an elaborate consensual process, and we revise our standards every five years or so. This time we are engaged in a major revision of our standards. We also review schools or colleges of education on a five-year cycle. Therefore, we visit 120 or so institutions every year. We have 400 people who are trained as members of our board of examiners to go on those visits. A three- to six-member team conducts the visit to the school of education. The visit is the culminating event. Quite a lot goes on beforehand — both on the part of the institution, in writing reports, and on our part. Before the visit, we evaluate curriculum in approximately 20 different areas involved in the review, for instance, elementary education, social studies education, math education, and the preparation of educational leaders.
NCATE just released standards for teachers in elementary schools. Is there a specific program for middle school teacher education? Will there be another document for middle school standards?
We have one already. We have specific standards in 20 areas, just like the elementary standards. We've taken a quite new approach with the elementary standards; that's why they're receiving particular attention right now.
In what way are the elementary standards different?
Well, the new approach is all part of our design of NCATE 2000, which is to focus on performance, rather than on curriculum. For a number of years, NCATE has been focusing on the quality of the curriculum the college offers, and now we will increasingly look at what the students learn as a result of that curriculum. That's the big change.
Then the next step is assessment of the performance.
Exactly. The school will use a combination of information to convince us that it is adequately preparing its students. This will range from assessments carried out by the college itself, state licensing assessments, or follow-up studies of their graduates, and evaluations by employers of the preparedness of the graduates — all of that. We encourage a broad assessment of the new teachers' knowledge and skill and ability to teach.
I've noticed that you're calling for partnerships between the college and Pre-K through grade12 institutions.
That is a requirement: our colleges must work in partnership with schools. At the moment, we have a more elaborate partnership that we are currently doing research on, and that is the Professional Development School. It's a quite intimate kind of partnership between a university and a school for purposes of preparing new teachers.
It's something that's going on at the local state university — just from sitting in on many of those meetings, I know what hard work it is to change!
Oh, it's huge. If you're going to do it right, it's huge.
Partly, I would think, the fact that an organization like NCATE would stand up and say, “All right, we're not going to accredit your institution unless these things are present,” would certainly make it easier for colleges to change. Are you finding that true?
Well, yes, certainly we do help colleges work with their constituencies in new ways, and I think our standards do help colleges to commence new relationships and help people see things in new ways.
As you go around the country visiting institutions, talking to deans and college presidents, do you find that, in general, they graciously accept the guidance that you give them? Or do they somewhat resent the fact that someone would tell them that they have to change?
Well, we're not exactly outsiders. We are the profession itself, articulating these new expectations, and literally thousands of people participate with us in the construction of our standards. Therefore, the standards represent a national professional consensus about what the direction should be. So, having said that, lots of people do stand up and salute, so to speak. Others, on the other hand, notice that some of these things might require additional resources or new ways of doing things, and that, of course, does create some stress in the system.
One of the recurring topics on campuses is how to fund the implementation of new technologies and possibly the hiring of new personnel to deal with them.
Absolutely. We need to build a technology infrastructure for the college of education that is equal to that which we have built for some of the other colleges on our campuses — the school of engineering is one that comes to mind.
|
NCATE Program Standards
American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and
Dance American Library Association Association for Childhood Education International Association for Educational Communications and Technology Council for Exceptional Children Educational Leadership Constituent Council International Reading Association International Society for Technology in Education International Technology Education Association/Council on Technology
Teacher Education National Association for the Education of Young Children National Association of School Psychologists National Council for the Social Studies National Council of Teachers of English National Council of Teachers of Mathematics National Middle School Association National Science Teachers Association |
NCATE’s
Specialty Areas Studies Board has approved national guidelines for 17
program areas. Professional associations that are constituent members
of NCATE developed these guidelines. Check NCATE’s Web site, www.ncate.org,
for more details about the Program Standards.
Aren't we finding, though, that a lot of the new students coming up are demanding that universities provide them, as consumers of education, with access to new technology?
Well, of course. That is our hope for the future. We have cohorts of students coming into colleges and universities — coming into high schools, for that matter, even into elementary schools in some cases — with technological readiness. And therefore there will be tremendous pressure to change the way our institutions operate, just from that source alone. When you combine that fact with the kind of pressure that gets generated out of our understandings of how the economy is changing, and what it will take to be a successful contributor to our economy, it becomes very clear that our institutions must change.
Another fascinating recent discussion is about the possible disappearance of the traditional college campus, and the growth of virtual universities. What is your take on that?
I don't foresee the demise of the college campus, but I do think that we will see technology well infused in traditional, campus-based education. I also think that technology-based and delivered education, as an alternative to campus-based education, is a new product. It might take some customers away from the old — but it also creates whole new product lines and also makes education accessible for people who would not otherwise have been able to access the traditional forms of education.
You mention new product lines. I would think that would be another area for accreditation.
We actually have a committee working on that very question.
Will that be part of the Education 2000 standards?
I don't think so. It's on a separate track. But we do have a committee that's called our Committee on Alternate Teacher Preparation Delivery Systems. Basically, it is looking at teacher preparation offered by other than universities. Some school districts, for instance, may provide teacher preparation; virtual universities may provide teacher education — and some profit- making corporations may get into the act — so we have a committee studying the issue.
There's a group in Boston that is recruiting new teachers, and they recruit folks from the business sector who don't necessarily have education degrees but may be looking for a midlife change of career.
Actually, Recruiting New Teachers, Inc., tends to steer people toward alternative routes to teacher preparation programs. About 350 colleges in the United States have special programs for more mature, nontraditional students — folks who decide after they graduate from college that they'd like to be teachers.
Is that going to be one of the groups you'll be setting standards for?
Our standards apply to all NCATE-accredited institutions. All of the programs offered by accredited institutions must meet our standards, including these programs that operate for nontraditional students.
What is the worth of NCATE accreditation, from a consumer perspective?
There are a lot of ways I can answer that question. The simplest is to say that at an accredited institution, students can count on the fact that they will be exposed to a high-quality, coherent program of studies that will provide them with knowledge of the field, skills in teaching that field, and some carefully supervised practical experience in getting ready to teach youngsters. We do have other evidence that suggests the value of attending an accredited institution — a study by the Educational Testing Service released last spring reveals that graduates of NCATE-accredited institutions pass state licensing exams at the highest rate. To put it into perspective: the second-highest passing rate is from unaccredited colleges of education, and the lowest passing rate is by those who have never taken part in teacher preparation.
Well, that's certainly interesting.
The whole issue of accreditation is very confusing to the public, because there are different kinds of accreditation. For example, virtually all colleges are regionally accredited, which means that they meet certain broad standards set by the accrediting association in their region of the country. In the Midwest, it would be the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. On the other hand, regional accreditation does not mean that the college of education will necessarily be accredited. So you have to ask two questions: Is the university itself accredited, as a whole, by the regional accrediting authority? And then, is the specific school — whether it's the education school or the business school or the medical or law school — accredited by its relevant, specialized accrediting body?
How many schools of education are now NCATE-accredited?
Five hundred are accredited, and 75 additional schools are currently seeking accreditation from us. However, there are over 1,200 schools of education in the country. So we have our work cut out for us.
Exactly! What's the story?
There is a variety of explanations for why that is so. Most of the schools that care a lot about teacher preparation are accredited by us. So, in fact, our schools produce about two-thirds of the nation's teachers. Some universities and colleges that have low numbers of education majors choose not to participate in our system.
But 700 non-accredited schools of education seems like a lot.
It is a lot. And all I can say is that interest in NCATE is at an all-time high.
Does it help that you've announced the NCATE 2000 standards ahead of time, and people knew they were coming?
The feedback we've received indicates that people seem to believe this is a very important move for us to make.
The preliminary work on NCATE 2000 is pretty much done and ready to go, is it not?
We have draft standards, which we posted on our Web site last March, but these will actually not be finalized until May of 2000. Everything on our Web site is public information. This is actually a very important part of our process — to publicize the fact that we are still in a developmental stage, for two reasons: one, so that we can get feedback; the other is so our schools can see the likely direction that we are taking, so they can begin to prepare themselves.
Let's talk a little about some of those standards, because many of them specifically have to do with technology.
Technology is part and parcel of the NCATE 2000 standards. We have something called a conceptual framework that is an over-arching vision of how a college will operate, and technology must be an integral component of that framework. From the conceptual framework springs everything else. We have six standards, almost all of which also involve technology. Standard One, which is our candidate knowledge and competence standard, is a place where colleges show us the knowledge and skills that they expect their candidates to develop. And their statements must reflect expectations currently set by the profession and the state for the use of technology as a tool for instruction and student learning.
So the states are also involved in this?
Oh, the states are very much involved in this, too. Of course, NCATE works very closely with the states now, and we have formal partnerships with 44 states.
|
NCATE 2000 Standards Revision Draft
|
|
Conceptual Framework Standard 1. Candidate Knowledge, Competence & Assessment Standard 2. Program Assessment and Unit Planning & Evaluation Standard 3. Field Experiences & Clinical Practices Standard 4. Diversity Standard 5. Faculty Performance & Development Standard 6. Unit Governance & Resources |
You told me there are six standards, and most of them involve technology.
Standard Two, which is the program assessment standard, says that colleges will monitor their students and the effectiveness of their program. This means the degree to which candidates are being prepared to use technology will be reflected in this standard. Then, our Standard Three, which is field experiences and clinical practice, will require that candidates have experiences that enable them to further develop the knowledge and skills that they acquire in the university setting.
Are you suggesting also that field experience come a little earlier in the teacher preparation program?
That's already a requirement. We expect field experiences to begin right at the point of enrollment in the college of education and then to culminate in an extended experience of student teaching closer to the end. But we view student teaching as only one of several opportunities for practical experience. Our fourth standard does not specifically address technology, but our fifth standard, which is faculty performance and development, is quite a reorientation for us. We have long had a faculty standard, but we tended to focus on faculty qualifications, and now we are going to focus on faculty performance. In short, what that means is: we will expect the college faculty to model effective teaching practices, including, of course, the appropriate use of technology in their instruction.
That'll be big, and I'm wondering if you're getting any reaction to it.
Remarkably, not — other than general approbation. As to the direction in which we are moving, we have not had people rising up in arms. And our last standard, which is governance and resources, is where we lay out our expectations for the adequacy of resources, including technological resources, and the expectation that the college of education's technological resources will compare favorably to those of other professional schools on campus.
Right now this is in draft stage, put on NCATE's Web site for your institutions and members to read and react to — then what happens?
We have a series of formal steps that are laid out. Comments on this particular draft were due August 1; then we had a meeting of our standards committee in August, and we posted the next revision on our Web site. Members have until May 2000 to respond. There are several other stages that are on our Web site for various iterations of comments and committee meetings.
I suppose you have to do that, if everyone's going to agree on the final standards, right?
Right. But I would venture a guess that what we're going to end up with will bear a strong resemblance to what we have at the moment. We've had hearings at various professional education conferences, as well as laid out our work in progress on our Web site. NCATE has always operated in this fashion, but never before have we been able to take advantage of electronic communication to facilitate the process.
And accelerate it.
Yes — NCATE could not design or implement a performance-based accreditation system without electronic communication. Electronic communication is enabling us to fundamentally redesign our system to focus on outcomes, rather than rely solely on inputs, as accrediting bodies have in the past. We will be able to gather performance-based data from each institution under the NCATE 2000 system. AT&T is providing support to NCATE as we make this fundamental system change.
And you'd think that, if you're talking about technological standards, the folks who are going to have to adhere to those standards would be ready for them now. Almost everybody has a computer now, right?
Oh, yes. But just having the computers is not enough. A complete reorientation of teaching and learning enabled by the existence of technology is necessary.
And that's what we're preparing our teachers for, this reorientation…
One of the ways I like to put it is that, if you look across all components of our economy, technology has pretty much revolutionized everything — except for the way we teach our children. That revolution, I believe, has now begun.
But technology can be used, and it can be misused.
And it has been already. There are good and bad uses of technology in education, and of course, we must continue to do research so that we can identify the ways in which technology will deepen the student's knowledge and skill in a variety of ways, as opposed to the kind of use of technology that simply treats the child as an empty receptacle into which knowledge must be dumped. Technology could advance that discredited notion, if we're not careful. But I'm very optimistic myself as to the potential of technology to revolutionize education and expand our children's horizons.
I'm wondering if some of these standards for accreditation will be calling for courses on the ethical uses of the Internet?
That's a very good question. I think that there are many folks who believe that character education is an important component of schooling and that technology use is just a piece of that. If you are an ethical person, you're not likely to abuse technology, so it's a bigger question than technology, I would think.
Have we left anything out?
I don't think so, but if we have, the answer's on our Web site!
|
|
Photo courtesy of NCATE.