Accreditation
Accreditation assures our graduates are well prepared to pursue their professional careers.
The Department of Education's teacher certification and professional development efforts are presently approved by the Michigan's Department of Education (MDE) and the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). Information about the accredited programs we offer for initial teacher preparation and advanced educator preparation can be found on our Teacher Preparation page.
All Teacher Certification programs have passed—and will continue to be subject to the ongoing approval of—the Michigan Department of Education. This required approval enables us to offer programs and make recommendations resulting in state-issued certification of teachers and in the state-issued endorsement of such certified teachers in any of a number of subject areas at the elementary and secondary level.
The University of Michigan-Dearborn Educator Preparation Program, which is designed to produce graduates who are knowledgeable in their content areas and their use of pedagogy with diverse learners and who are prepared to become caring and reflective professionals, is granted accreditation at the initial-licensure and advanced level by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), for a period of six years, from 2020-2026. This accreditation certifies that the program has provided evidence that it adheres to CAEP’s standards.
The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) requires annual reporting measures from each teacher preparation institution to provide information to the public on program outcomes and impacts. The following list contains the 2024 CAEP Annual Measures with links to provide the evidence for each at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
Measure 1: Completer Effectiveness
The Michigan Department of Education (MDE) requires school districts to provide ratings for teacher effectiveness. The new legislation for educator evaluation was implemented to support MDE’s Strategic Goal #3, to “develop, support, and sustain a high-quality, prepared and collaborative education workforce.” The legislation requires the annual evaluations to incorporate student growth as a significant component. To determine the ratings, all school districts selected a teacher evaluation tool from an MDE approved list of options and provided a rating of highly effective, effective, minimally effective or ineffective for each teacher employed. 95.2% UM-Dearborn completers received a rating of highly effective or effective in their first three years of teaching indicating their teaching effectiveness.
Measure 2: Satisfaction of Employers and Stakeholder Involvement
Two sources of data are provided as evidence for the satisfaction of employers of UM-Dearborn completers of initial teacher certification programs: 1) Educator Effectiveness Ratings and 2) Administrators Survey. Both of these are provided by the Michigan Department of Education to Educator Preparation Institutions. All principals complete yearly teacher evaluations and submit the results to the Michigan Department of Education, which in turn, provides the results to educator programs. Principals rate teachers in one of four categories: highly effective, effective, minimally effective or ineffective. 95.2% UM-Dearborn completers received a rating of highly effective or effective in their first three years of teaching. School district evaluations indicate that UM-Dearborn completers are well prepared to meet the demands of the classroom including having a positive effect on student growth. The Administrators Survey is completed by principals for completers in their first year of teaching. The results of UM-Dearborn completers are compared to the Michigan state average. The survey results were all above the 80% effective level. In reviewing both sets of data, we interpret the data to indicate that employer satisfaction is high with our completers.
There are currently no similar instruments used by the Michigan Department of Education to survey employers for Advanced Program Completers. Therefore, we will be surveying administrators who supervise the internship placements of advanced program candidates in the school administrator program, central office certificate program and the reading specialist program..
Measure 3: Candidate Competency at Completion
For examining the competency of completers, we used several sources of information as evidence. One set of data is a Michigan Department of Education (MDE) Candidate Suite Survey collected as completers graduate from the program. The survey collects data from the candidates upon completion as well as the cooperating teachers from the field placements of the candidates and the university supervisors. The other data set is a MDE survey conducted with completers one year after graduating. Both of the surveys show overall positive responses from completers about the UM-Dearborn program, their preparation and their clinical field experiences. Also provided is information on Licensing Requirements and the Title II Report showing detailed information about the licensing of candidates. These data sources indicate that UM-Dearborn completers are well prepared to serve as beginning teachers.
Measure 4: Ability of Completers to be hired in Education Positions for which they have been prepared
We compile the employment data of our completers are hired for teaching positions in Michigan in their initial three years of teaching. The vast majority of our completers remain in Southeastern Michigan.