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ACTA weighs in on dispositions
Both the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) currently require accredited schools of education and social work to evaluate students according to their social and political "dispositions." Couched in the amorphously leftist language of "social justice," the dispositions requirement essentially guarantees that aspiring teachers and social workers must pass an ideological litmus test in order to qualify for their professions. At Le Moyne College, Brooklyn College, and Washington State University, to name a few, the dispositions assessment has erupted in controversy as conservative students and critics have found themselves warned, sanctioned, and even expelled for failing to conform to their institution's pedagogical orthodoxy.
Yesterday, ACTA called on Margaret Spellings and the Department of Education to "disavow" accreditation standards that impose political litmus tests on students. ACTA also called on Congress to hold investigative hearings on how disposition-oriented evaluative standards are being applied in schools across the country.
"The fact that these evaluation standards can be utilized to weed out those students who fail to think 'in the right way' is particularly deplorable at a time when there are serious shortages of qualified teachers," ACTA's letter to Spellings said. "Rather than permitting federal accreditors to engage in social engineering, the Department of Education should demand clearly defined principles which relate directly to a student's future success, namely skills and subject-matter knowledge."
In a press release issued yesterday, ACTA president Anne D. Neal noted that "These amorphous evaluation standards, as applied, undermine students' First Amendment rights and higher education's obligation to instruct rather than indoctrinate. ... They give schools unlimited power to control what their students think and do."
For months now, ACTA has been fighting NCATE's and CSWE's disturbingly ideological demand that accredited schools assess their students according to dispositions theory. In June, ACTA called on the Department of Education, governors, and institutions of higher education to disavow the dispositions requirement. Yesterday's call represents a necessary reminder to DOE and higher education leaders that the problem with dispositions theory is very real, and that the potential of this required assessment program to violate students' civil rights is being actively realized on campuses across the country.
Here's hoping that this time, Spellings, Congress, and higher education officials will pay attention.
Posted by acta online on November 09, 2005 at November 9, 2005 12:01 PM
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