Since 1995, the CAA has had an accreditation agreement in place with the teacher education accreditor to support collaboration between accrediting agencies and recognize that graduate education programs in audiology and speech-language pathology should not be subject to duplicate accreditation reviews, and thereby substantially reduces the burden to programs.
The Agreement for Recognition, which was updated in 2008 with the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), clarified the responsibilities and procedures between the CAA, NCATE, and programs; therefore, superseding all former agreements between these agencies. NCATE merged with the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) to form a new accrediting agency for teacher preparation programs, Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), in 2013.
Meaning of CAEP Exemption Option
CAEP has identified several professional accreditors recognized by the U.S. Department of Education or by the Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), such as the CAA, for which graduates from these agencies’ programs also serve school populations. CAEP allows any CAA-accredited programs in audiology or speech-language pathology housed within a college, school, or department of education and that also are due for CAEP accreditation of teacher education programs, to choose to be exempt from review by CAEP. In this circumstance, the program would not be recognized as accredited by CAEP and the program would not be required to report the number of completers in these programs in any annual report submitted to CAEP. For CAA programs that choose to be reviewed during the CAEP accreditation process, they would be treated in the same manner as a program that has Specialized Professional Accreditation recognition with CAEP, which requires that data and evidence be provided to support the CAEP Standards and reporting obligations.
For details about these processes, contact the CAEP offices.
