CEC | CEC Performance-Based Standards

CEC Performance-Based Standards

The National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) recently approved new CEC performance-based standards for the preparation and licensure of special educators. The new CEC standards are divided into three parts: Field Experiences and Clinical Practice Standard, Assessment System Standards, and Special Education Content Standards.

Program submitting reports (folios) to CEC in 2002 can use the current standards or the new performance based standards. Programs submitting reports to CEC in 2003 will be required to use the new performance based standards.

How are the new standards different from the current standards?
The new CEC standards are divided into three parts: Field Experiences and Clinical Practice Standard, Assessment System Standards, and Special Education Content Standards.

In the past, CEC had 15 practicum standards. The new Field Experiences and Clinical Practice Standards are much briefer, focus on the kinds of experiences provided, and no longer have a requirement for a specific number of hours or weeks.

The Assessment System Standards provide guidance to programs on the key components of the their assessment systems.

The CEC Special Education Content Standards are made up of ten narrative standards. The Content standards have been reorganized from eight domain areas into ten domain areas. These domain areas parallel those of the ten Interstate New Teacher and Assessment Consortium (INTASC) principles. The narrative Content Standards were written to reflect the content of the validated knowledge and skills. Program reviews will be done at the Content Standard level, not at the knowledge and skill level.

Although reviews will be done at the Content Standard level, it will be critical for faculty to use the knowledge and skill items in the Common Core and the appropriate Area of Specialization to inform their curriculum development and to develop assessments. This will be necessary to ensure that the program's evaluation system comprehensively addresses each of the ten standards.

All of the knowledge and skills in the Common Core and the Areas of Specialization have been edited to eliminate redundancy and to increase the precision of the language. In addition, several new items have been validated and added.

Will the review procedures be different?
The new standards and review procedures reflect a major change in the approval process. In the past, programs provided evidence (primarily by syllabi) that the standards were taught. Under the new system, programs must provide evidence that the standards are assessed and that their candidates perform appropriately on those assessments. Therefore, program faculty should develop a comprehensive assessment system that addresses each of the ten Content Standards and collect and aggregate candidate performance on those assessments.

In the past, the primary forms of documentation for the program reports were syllabi. These syllabi demonstrated that the standards were taught. Under the new system, syllabi are not required. Instead, the program report will contain documentation about the program's assessment system and report candidate data.

Reviewer rubrics have been developed for the Field Experiences and Clinical Practice Standard and for the Assessment System Standards.

Please note that CEC will not expect to see assessments for each of the Knowledge and Skill items. The assessments must address the ten Content Standards, not each of the Knowledge and Skills. These standards are the same for all programs. However, it is expected that faculty will use the knowledge and skill items in the Common Core and the appropriate Area of Specialization to inform their curriculum development to ensure that the standards are met. The program's evaluation system should ensure that the program's assessment system comprehensively addresses each of the ten standards.

What guidance does CEC provide to help us prepare a program report (folio)?

CEC is updating the document, “Guidelines for the Preparation of the Special Education Program Report.” The updated report will be available in November 2007.

If you have any questions, a CEC Professional Standards representative will be happy to answer them. The staff can be reached at 1-888-232-7733 or profdev@cec.sped.org.

CEC staff is also available to provide on-site technical assistance.