Accreditation in the Professions: Implications for Educational Leadership Preparation Programs

Program accreditation is a process based on a set of professional expectations and standards meant to signal competency and credibility. Although accreditation has played an important role in shaping educational leadership preparation programs, recent revisions to accreditation processes and standards have highlighted attention to the purposes, designs, and impacts of accreditation. This article examines programmatic accreditation in other professional disciplines to identify themes and trends that may have implications for the design of accreditation for educational leadership programs.