The History and Current Status of the System for the Accreditation of Teacher Education Programs in the United States

Features of the current system for the accreditation of teacher education programs in the United States are reported with a review of the history of this system. The author believes that this study is valuable in few studies of this history and the current status of the criteria for accreditation of U.S. teacher education programs have been published in Japan and that active steps towards reforms of universities in this country on the basis of self-inspection and self-evaluation are now viewed as essential. This paper deals with the following: (1) a sketch of the history of the accreditation of U.S. teacher education programs, including the profiles, accreditation criteria and procedures of the systems in the first half of the 20th century and a description of the nation-wide accreditation organization (NCATE) which came into effect in the latter half of the 20th century; (2) a chronological review of NCATE's accreditation criteria, with emphasis on their changes related to university professors and education curricula; (3) the new criteria added to the 1987 NCATE accreditation criteria when they were substantially revised in 1995; and (4) problems, level of effectiveness and unresolved issues pertaining to the NCATE's accreditation system, and suggestions for Japan. The analysis of the NCATE accreditation system has yielded suggestions for Japan. In the United States, teachers (professors, etc.) involved in the higher education are periodically rated as to their contributions to teaching students, research activities and education-related services. These ratings are taken into account when their pay, promotions and terms of contract are determined. The author believes that in Japan greater importance than at present should be attached to university teachers' faculty development activities, instead of their being evaluated solely on their research activities, and that teachers who are active in faculty development should be more favorably treated in university personnel management