By Kim Manahan (Whetstone staff writer)

The Whetstone/ Rachel Nissim

The education department is losing its national accreditation, said Dr. Patricia Dwyer, vice president of academic affairs.

Wesley has been on probation for one year with the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), before hearing two weeks ago that it will lose its accreditation at the end of 2010.

But this doesn’t mean that Teacher Education students will not be able to teach, Dwyer said.
“Students are licensed through the state,” she said. “The state will continue to license students to teach in and out of the state.”

The college notified students and their parents last week.

Wesley was cited in 2009 by NCATE for lacking assessment and unit governance.

“The department has worked hard in demonstrating progress between 2007 and 2009,” Dwyer said. “We are very committed to doing whatever it takes to get re-accredited. We need to have a cohesive unit to do data analysis and program development.”

Dwyer said that many changes have been made since 2009, but NCATE only included those that were in place prior to 2010.

“NCATE looked at 2009,” she said. “Changes made this year could not be considered.”

“The Education Department and I are working with NCATE to commence the process for reapplication, and we will use their recommendations as a blueprint for improvement,” Dwyer said.