We congratulate Education Week on what we believe was an objective
portrayal of where we are, as a profession, in the accreditation of teacher
education programs ("New Accreditor Gaining Toehold in Teacher Ed.,"
May 23, 2001). It is a fact that fewer than half of all programs have
national accreditation, that the knowledge base for what teachers need to
know and be able to do has less than 100 percent agreement, and that
there is insufficient research to back a set of national standards in all
disciplines.

Yet, as we view where we were 30 years ago and where we are today
with regard to the assessment of teaching performance, we believe we
have come a long way in reaching parity with the other professions. We
have benchmarks for performance that have broad national support; we
have aligned standards of national organizations and specialty areas; and
this pattern of national collaboration has allowed many of us to speak a
similar if not identical language about what we believe to be important in
teacher education.

It appears to us that the Teacher Education Accreditation Council would
like to go back to the time when there were no standards, no common
frameworks, and no dialogue among professionals. Frank B. Murray's
position, as stated in the piece, paints a less than optimistic future for our
profession: Let's go back to the time when there were no benchmarks
except those that we as individuals created. You can use a
performance-based system if you want to, but that's up to you. You can
have one professor teaching all of your methods courses if you believe
that's a good idea. And if they supervise 18 students each semester while
teaching four courses, that's OK, because we're not asking them to do
any scholarly work.

Standards, in all cases, are not based only on research, but also on
collective values, the wisdom of practice, and shared visions of quality, a
consensus of stakeholders. The National Council for Accreditation of
Teacher Education Board of Examiners members are carefully trained to
triangulate data, based on a set of national standards, and assess an
institution's performance based on those standards. There is no
consensus under the TEAC model, and certainly no generalizability. So
Mr. Murray suggests that we continue to plod along in our own unique
ways, continuing to value what it is that we internally believe, beholden to
no one, and maintaining what it is we do at all costs.

Ah yes, cost. Quality costs, and the sooner institutions of higher
education understand that producing quality teachers costs money, the
better off we will all be. Accreditation is a small price to pay when
compared with the overall cost of what a poorly educated teaching force
has done and will continue to do if things don't change.

Jay R. Shotel
jshotel@gwu.edu
Professor and Chair
Department of Teacher Preparation and Special Education

Mary Hatwood Futrell
Dean
Graduate School of Education and Human Development
George Washington University
Washington, D.C.