The Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) received long-awaited recognition
as an accrediting agency from the U.S. Department of Education in July. A committee of the Department of Education, the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI), voted unanimously during a June 10 hearing to recommend that Education Secretary Rod Paige grant initial recognition to TEAC, a national leader in the effort to reform teacher education accreditation.
     “This represents a multi-year triumph for CIC,” said CIC President Richard Ekman, noting that CIC was instrumental in the founding of TEAC. First established as a project within CIC, TEAC is now a separate organization. During his testimony at the June hearing, Ekman explained the origins of TEAC. “In the mid-1990s, some small and mid-sized colleges and universities became concerned that the existing accrediting body for their teacher preparation programs was imposing requirements that would be difficult for any small institution to fulfill, and it was also ignoring the distinctive ways in which small colleges and universities prepare teachers. These colleges and universities banded together, with the active support of the Council of Independent Colleges and eventually the involvement of public research universities, to create TEAC,” Ekman said.
     Sandra B. Cohen, associate professor and director of teacher education at the Curry School of Education, University of Virginia, also testified on behalf of TEAC, noting that she oversaw both the university’s TEAC and its National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) accrediting processes in 1999-2000. UVA’s program is unique among the nation’s schools of education, she said, because it is the first to be fully accredited by TEAC and is the only institution with accreditation from both TEAC and NCATE. In comparing the accreditation processes of both agencies, Cohen said “although the Curry School of Education had been professionally accredited by NCATE since 1960, we had never been forced to examine our own philosophy, policies, or structures in such a meaningful way. In the past, such accreditation was achieved through a collection of artifacts and a series of writing tasks demonstrating that we fit the requirements. There was no real need on the part of the Teacher Education Program to attempt a thorough institutional self-analysis of practices, claims, and outcomes. TEAC, on the other hand, forced us to look at our program in a way that drove us to understand its very structure and to face our own shortcomings.”
     The Committee rejected the only argument of a witness for denial of recognition, advanced during the hearing by Richard Mainzer, Jr., of the Council for Exceptional Children. Mainzer said he could not support TEAC “because it doesn’t require special education teacher programs to meet the rigorous standards set by the CEC.”
     Following statements by several other presenters, including Allen Splete, chair of the TEAC Board of Directors and TEAC President Frank Murray, the Committee had no difficulty reaching a decision to recommend recognition. The recommendation was accompanied by expressions of appreciation for the rigor of TEAC’s materials and philosophy and high hopes for TEAC’s success in improving teacher education. 
The committee recommended initial recognition for TEAC for a period of two years and requested an interim report from the Council next June on its progress.

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Last updated: March 2003
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