Karen Karp, a visiting professor in the EdD program at the Johns Hopkins School of Education, has contributed two chapters to the book Teacher Quality and Teacher Education Quality: Accreditation from a Global Perspective. She is the latest in a string of School of Education faculty who have published or contributed to the education literature.
The book, published by Routledge, concerns accreditation from a global perspective and its implications for teacher and teacher-education program quality. It draws on the work on teacher quality and accreditation in 10 nations, including Chile, Great Britain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
In her chapter, “Making Accreditation Successful and Meaningful,” Karp asserts that accreditation should be embraced as a valuable endeavor from the beginning. With this framework, rather than finding its worth only in the most obvious outcome of passing all standards, the process moves more smoothly, collaboration is more authentic, the program under review is enhanced, and the quality of the products for documenting impact is more rigorous and meaningful.
In her other chapter, “The Meaning of Teacher Quality,” Karp claims that regardless of geographic location, educational paradigm and curriculum framework, the teacher remains the most influential contributor to the success of any academic program. This emphasis on the importance of the teacher has been affirmed by numerous research studies, with an extensive review of educational meta-analyses revealing that among various school factors, teacher quality accounts for the highest variance in students’ achievement levels. Such findings about the impact of teacher quality on students’ learning and performance support the need for a stronger focus on preparing high-quality teachers for high-impact student learning and performance.
