In a new Huffington Post column, Woodrow Wilson Foundation President Arthur Levine argues that university-based teacher preparation programs should embrace the opportunity that comes from a greater demand for accountability.

“The real need is for teacher education to clean its own house and set accountability standards for the profession. It needs to do this because rigorous self-regulation is the hallmark of excellence and health in every profession,” Levine writes. He adds that proposed new teacher prep regulations from the U.S. Department of Education, along with calls from other public and private thought leaders for greater accountability in teacher preparation, will give universities “compelling evidence to understand how well they are doing and [identify] the areas in which action is necessary.”

Levine identifies the work of the Council for the Accreditation of Education Professions (CAEP), on whose board he sits, as a coalition-driven opportunity for teacher education to embrace new standards and chart its own course of improvement.

The full column is available on Levine’s HuffPost blog.

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