Assessment and Accreditation

The Graduate School of Education (GSE) engages in the assessment of student learning and program improvement through the comprehensive work of the Assessment Task Force, which was formed in Fall 2006. The GSE will have an accreditation visit in Fall 2009 by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the Teacher Standards and Practices Commission (TSPC) at the same time. The GSE Assessment Task Force meets regularly to oversee the planning and implementation of our assessment system.

The work of the Assessment Task Force is not motivated only by accreditation. The other very important reasons for our assessment efforts include:

• To support candidate learning. GSE students should have assessments that make clear our expectations, reflect state and national standards, and give them useful feedback about their knowledge, skills, and dispositions.
• To verify each candidate's qualifications. The GSE takes seriously its responsibility to ensure that the teachers, counselors, and administrators we prepare are adequately equipped to assume the roles for which they are hired in schools and agencies throughout Oregon.
• To verify program effectiveness. In a time of some public skepticism about teacher education and the role that colleges and universities play, we need to have data to tell our story more convincingly than we have done in the past.
• To identify areas for program improvement. We need to identify not only those things that we do very well, but also those areas in which we need to do better. We are committed to quality.