The College of Education has been placed on probation by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) for not complying with the new standards instated by the organization which went into effect in January. NCATE was operating under a set of standards that mainly looked at faculty and how they taught classes. In 2000, the organization felt it necessary for those standards to change, therefore resulting in new standards for colleges to follow which relied more on student or candidate performance, Cleveland Hill, dean of the college of education, said.

NCATE wants to know how students are performing in the classroom, and they want to be supplied with evidence to document that those students completing the program can perform at the level the college claims they can. This standard of documenting student performance is known as Standard 2, which deals with the college’s documentation of students’ assessments.

“With the new standards, they are the expectations for a comprehensive assessment system,” Alice Pecoraro, vice president for academic affairs, said.

“Up until 2000, the best measure of that would be if a student made an ‘A’ in a class. That was a good measure that they understand and can do what they say they can do. In 2000, NCATE said it had to be much, much more than that,” Hill said.

NCATE developed a new set of standards that were completely different from those that the college had been accredited under.

“We were going under something that was brand new,” Hill said.

He said that the college was given the choice in 2001 to either be evaluated under the new standards, or the old standards that the college was used to. Hill said they chose to go under the new standards.

“Because we chose to go under the new standards, we were called a pollen institution. Only 28 institutions in the country decided to go under the new standards, and we were one of them,” Hill said.

“We were the first institution in the state of Louisiana to go under the new standards. That was a conscience decision. We wanted to make sure we were on the cutting edge of changing education. We did not want to be four years behind. We wanted to be up front.”

In March 2001, an accreditation team said the college did not meet two of the six standards required for accreditation. The college then submitted a rejoinment, which is a formal response to the evaluation. In this response, the college tried to prove that they had in fact met all standards for accreditation.

“As a result of [the rejoinment] NCATE overturned one of those decisions, but they still said that we did not meet Standard 2. As a result of not meeting that, they decided to place our programs on probation,” Hill said.

He said the college felt as though enough information had been submitted, so they appealed the probation decision made by NCATE. The appeal was denied resulting in the program remaining on probation.

“We developed an assessment plan that we thought would meet the standards for pilot institutions, the institutions that are to go up first, but they wanted us to be further along with this assessment system,” Pecoraro said.

Although the results were not as successful as the college hoped it would be, Hill said he feels that the college is four years ahead of other institutions because the college now knows what to expect in upcoming evaluations.

The students in the college are well prepared to be teachers and this probation in no way reflects their ability to perform after graduation, Pecoraro said.

“NCATE does not doubt the quality of our students. They do not doubt that our students can go out and teach as effectively as anybody. That was not the question. The issue was that we did not document it well enough,” Hill said.

Students in the college have handled this situation well, although there was some confusion last spring, Hill said.

“They did not understand the process that [the college] must go through,” he said

The students are able to understand the process because the college has “made a conscience effort to explain the entire process.” Each student within the college was sent a letter of explanation, and Hill said any student not understanding any aspect of the probation should see him for further explanations.

“Part of the process that we have to get students to understand is that while you are on probation, you are still fully accredited,” Hill said.

Some students in the college are confident that the probation status is only temporary.

“I feel when NCATE comes back, Nicholls will not be on probation any more. They are going to get it corrected. I feel confident with Nicholls,” Tracy Lovell, elementary education senior from Houma, said.

Jill Chaisson, dual education junior form Bourg, said she too is confident that the college will be able to pull through and get accreditation.

When on probation, the college will have to prepare for a visit from an accreditation team in one year instead of the normal five-year cycle that used by NCATE. The college will go up for a review in the spring of 2003.

“NCATE wanted to do it in the fall of 2003, but we have asked them to let us do it in the spring because we feel that we know now exactly how they want us to document these things, and we want to get it behind us,” Hill said.

The college is going to carefully document how they access the students at four transition points in the program.

Students will be assessed when they enter the college, are in their program status, during student teaching and after graduation. These will be multiple assessments on each level to best measure the students’ performances.

“I am going to make sure that they are satisfied. We are going to look at every other assessment plan that was approved by NCATE, and we will model our plan after all of the other approved plans,” Pecoraro said.

Hill said a task force has been appointed to work on the assessment piece has been working for the past two months.

“In addition to the task force, the college has appointed a NCATE steering committee. Their job is to coordinate everything that needs to be done. We will prepare for a visit like we have never been visited before,” Hill said.

“Students need to be assured that students who are currently in the program and students who are contemplating coming to Nicholls are coming to a great program that will provide them with an excellent preparation for teaching,” Pecoraro said.