Mary Brabeck, Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, has been elected chair of the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation’s (CAEP) inaugural Board of Directors.

Steinhardt Dean Mary Brabeck Elected Board Chair of Educator Preparation Council
Mary Brabeck, above, Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, has been elected chair of the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation’s (CAEP) inaugural Board of Directors.


Inaugural Leaders Will Guide CAEP’s National Effort to Implement Rigorous New Standards for Teacher Education

CAEP is a newly formed nonprofit that accredits educator-preparation programs according to new standards that raise the bar for entry into teaching, measure programs by their impact on student learning, and focus on ensuring that teachers have what it takes to help our diverse student population meet complex standards.

In July 2013, the nation’s two leading accreditors of teacher preparation programs, the National CATE and TEAC, consolidated to form CAEP. CAEP’s Board of Directors convened for the first time in late August and approved new accreditation standards formulated earlier this summer by its Commission on Standards and Performance Reporting.

Under these standards, which were adopted last week by the CAEP board, U.S. educator preparation programs will be assessed on how well they prepare teachers to teach pre-K through 12 students.

“This is a crucial time for teacher education as we move toward an approach to quality assurance that will change the rules about who can become a teacher and how we judge the quality of preparation programs,” said James Cibulka, president of CAEP. “The new focus on clinical practice and use of evidence of impact on student learning will produce teachers who can be effective on day one, assuring that all of America’s diverse students will be successful learners in our global economy.”

Building the knowledge base about what constitutes effective teacher preparation will be a high priority for CAEP, though it is a topic which has received little attention at the federal level.

“More research is undoubtedly necessary to identify ways to better prepare our nation’s educators,” said Brabeck. “But these standards stem from the best available data on how to assess and build a high-quality teacher education program, marking a major step forward in raising the bar in preparing teachers for careers in the classroom.”

CAEP’s standards are available here.

Brabeck, a recognized leader in the fields of education and psychology, has served as dean of NYU Steinhardt since 2003. A fellow of the American Psychological Association, Brabeck also holds an appointment in NYU Steinhardt’s Department of Applied Psychology, and her work focuses on intellectual development, professional ethics, and inter-professional collaboration.

Brabeck has served on the APA Board of Educational Affairs, was chair of the Task Force on Applications of Psychological Science to Teaching and Learning, and chair of the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education. She is currently a member of the Board of Governors of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Her awards include an honorary degree from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, an Outstanding Achievement Award from the University of Minnesota, a Leadership Award from the APA’s Committee on Women in Psychology, and the Kuhmerker Award from the Association for Moral Education.

CAEP also elected Illinois state superintendent Christopher Koch as vice-chair of its Board of Directors.

As Illinois’ education chief, Koch has led efforts to bring coherence to state standards, curriculum, assessments, and college entry requirements in Illinois, and has been a strong proponent of using data to inform policy. He supports the establishment of nationally and internationally benchmarked standards that promote rigor and relevance, as well as assessments common to all states so that fair and accurate comparisons about student performance between states and countries can be made.

Koch also is a member of the Council of Chief State School Officers and the Commission on Standards and Performance Reporting. He is the former chief education officer for the state of Illinois and state director of special education. He has been a special education teacher in four states. He also served with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Vocational and Adult Education, where he administered programs in correctional education and School-to-Work transition.

Editor’s Note:
About the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development (@NYUSteinhardt)
Located in the heart of Greenwich Village, NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development prepares students for careers in the arts, education, health, media, and psychology. Since its founding in 1890, the Steinhardt School's mission has been to expand human capacity through public service, global collaboration, research, scholarship, and practice. To learn more about NYU Steinhardt, visit: http://steinhardt.nyu.edu.

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