Citizen/Blog #3
Title: “Teacher-Education Accreditor Formally Drops Social-Justice Language”
Summary: NCATE, the agency with a near monopoly over the accreditation of teacher institution, was widely critisized after some of its accredited education schools began to use one of NCATE’s standards to dismiss teacher hopefuls due to their unsatisfactory political beliefs. In the face of this controversy, NCATE eliminated the debated term.
Topic: Accrediting all schools of education
Category: Citizen, Witness/Blog
What is it: A news blog reporting on current accredition news
Publication Information: Chronicle of Higher Education, October 24, 2007
Author: Robin Wilson
Accessed: Mar. 14, 2009
Support:
- NCATE, widely used accrediting agency
- Jane Liebrand, spokeswoman for the agency
This blog reads like a quick-print news release. The facts are there, the quotes are few, and the length is limited.
Audience and Agenda: The print version of the Chronicle of Higher Education reaches 80,000 academics with 350,000 total subscribers. The web-version has one-million unique visitors a month. Although the targeted audience is university and college faculty and administrators, the Chronicle is marketed to appeal to the average reader as well.
Usefulness: The succint nature of this blog, and the credible publication that it is represented by gives weight to truth in its content. This makes the claims of NCATE seem unreliable. On the topic of their alleged removal of the term “social justice” from their required teacher dispositions, NCATE claimed to never have imposed such a disposition, washing their hands clean of the scandal. The idea that NCATE would allow schools to implement a term that would give their teaching requirements such a political undertone creates more questions as to the intentions of NCATE’s standards. How does NCATE define the teaching profession? Is teacher education about preparing teachers to teach well, or grooming a specific breed of teacher?
Works Cited:
- The about page for The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/help/about.htm
