NCATE Panel Calls for Turning Teacher Education "Upside Down"

A national blue ribbon panel convened last year by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) last week called for teacher education to be "turned upside down" by revamping programs to make clinical practice the centerpiece of the curriculum. The panel also recommended that teacher education institutions and school districts partner and make teacher education more of a shared responsibility. Eight states—California, Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Tennessee—have already agreed to implement the panel’s recommendations and will work with national experts to pilot approaches to implementation and bring new models of clinical preparation to scale.

“The new approaches will involve significant policy and procedural changes in both the state higher education and P–12 education systems and entail revamping longstanding policies and practices that are no longer suited to today's needs. The changes called for will require state higher education officials, governors, and state P–12 commissioner leadership working together to remove policy barriers and create policy supports for the new vision of teacher education,” says the NCATE press release on the panel’s recommendations.

Read the recommendations of the NCATE Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation and Partnerships for Improved Student Learning.