The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) is officially recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as an accrediting body for institutions that prepare teachers and other professional personnel for work in preschool, elementary, and secondary schools. The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) also recognizes NCATE. Through its voluntary, peer review process, NCATE helps to ensure that accredited institutions produce competent, caring, and qualified teachers and other professional school personnel who can help all students learn (Professional Standards for the Accreditation of Teacher Preparation Institutions, p. 1).

The standards measure an institution’s effectiveness according to the profession’s expectations for high quality teacher preparation. The education profession has reached a general consensus about the knowledge and skills educators need to help P–12 students learn. That consensus forms the basis for NCATE's unit standards and specialized program standards. The specialized program standards are an integral part of the NCATE accreditation system as they describe the specialized content that teacher candidates should master (p. 9).