The California Council on Teacher Education (CCTE) supports and encourages approaches to the preparation and continuing development of teachers which:

• Work toward the integration of the professional preparation of educators into career-long professional development involving sound theory and effective practices at all stages.
  
  
• Establish and foster strong support programs for teachers at all stages of their careers, particularly at the beginning stage, to help attract and retain high-quality teachers; such programs should include a role for university-based personnel as well as practitioners from the schools.
  
  
• Recognize and support alliances that work to improve preservice preparation, induction, and professional development of educators.
  
  
• Assure that professional programs include both scholarly study and school-based practice involving collaborative exchanges and cooperation between university and school personnel.
  
  
• Recognize the critical importance of valuing and continuously affirming cultural, linguistic, and ethnic diversity throughout the teacher education and P-12 curriculum.
  
  
• Foster the strong and balanced preparation of teachers in subject matter content, foundational studies, multicul-tural and multilingual education, and sound pedagogical practice at all levels of the professional development continuum.
  
  
• Assure that the guidelines, regulations, and laws governing the preparation of teachers and other educational personnel in California are based on, and are continually informed by, research and best practice; and that these guidelines, regulations, and laws reflect the considered opinions and voices of experts in the field.
  
  
• Include multiple and alternative approaches to the admission, retention, and credential recommendations for prospective teachers and in evaluatipon of inservice teachers; and assure that all assessment measures used to evaluate teacher candidates and teachers at any point in their preservice preparation and inservice practice are valid, unbiased, and relevant to teaching and learning practice.
  
  
• Support accreditation and evaluation processes which improve professional practice and which are conducted in an unbiased, collegial atmosphere by university and school professionals.
  
  
• Seek and ensure the active participation of the teacher education community in policy discussions and decisions regarding preservice education and the professional development of educators.
  
  
• Foster public and political support for education at all levels, pre-K to university with an equitable commitment of resources to maximize teaching and learning.
  
  
• Recognize that quality teacher education is an intensely interactive and highly individualized activity requiring stable and adequate financial and personnel resources for ongoing development of effective teacher preparation programs.

- Originally adoted by the Delegate Assembly of the California Council on the Education of Teachers, April 17, 1997 and updated and amended by the Delegate Assembly of the California Council on Teacher Education at the Spring Conference 2006.