The selective impact of disassociation on colleges of education which have voluntarily forfeited Ncate accreditation

The University of Northern Iowa and Arizona State University were chosen for a study of the impact of dropping membership in the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). A written survey was conducted of all full-time faculty members in the Colleges of Education, in an attempt to assess the impact of the forfeiture of NCATE accreditation in five selected areas: financial, the decision-making process, stress, roles and workload. The results showed that while the financial impact was unknown, other areas of impact on the faculty, most notably the process of making the forfeiture decision, were quite noticeable. Faculty were divided about the merits of retaining NCATE accreditation, but the methods by which the forfeiture decisions were reached pointed out sharp contrasts between the two universities. Faculty members who felt that they were involved in the decision-making process were able to accept the decision more easily, even though they might have disagreed with the final decision