The Value of Being a Peer Reviewer
School Administrator, August 2020



Lisa McCauley (right), president of the Middle States Association Commissions on Elementary and Secondary Schools, believes peer reviews during an accreditation process are valuable for all parties. PHOTO COURTESY OF MIDDLE STATES ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS
George Edwards remembers the first time he went on a school accreditation peer review visit as headmaster of a high school in New Hampshire that was beginning its own accreditation process with a self-reflection review.

“I called the New England Association for Schools and Colleges and volunteered to be a visitor,” says Edwards, now director of the regional body’s Commission on Public Schools. “I really enjoyed that first visit. It was good professional development, and I liked giving back and helping other schools improve.”

The multiday peer review visit is the core of the accreditation process, the step that follows the school’s comprehensive self-study. The accrediting commission uses the examiners’ on-site observations along with the self-examination to decide whether accreditation is warranted, denied or approved with stipulation.

Personal Benefits

The four major accreditation bodies that review elementary and secondary schools rely on experienced educators to serve on the peer review panels whose members typically spend two to four days visiting schools and talking to students, teachers, parents and administrators. The host organization is responsible for site-visit expenses but not for the time of peer reviewers, who volunteer their services.

“It’s been said it’s the best professional development you can get,” says Barry Groves, a former superintendent in California who now works as president of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Accrediting Commission for Schools, which manages accreditation for 98 percent of the schools in California and Hawaii. “You visit schools and learn the neat things they’re doing. I’m naturally a teacher, so I loved working with the schools to share ideas and see their options they have for school improvement.”

Lisa McCauley is president of the Middle States Association Commissions on Elementary and Secondary Schools, which handles accreditation in a region that historically ran from New York to Delaware but now includes 39 states. McCauley says she believes in the powerful value of peer reviews for all parties.

Self-study reviews by teachers and administrators take up to 18 months, and “many schools are very hard on themselves,” McCauley says. The peer reviewers often point out the positives of what they’ve seen, along with the challenges. “That’s what growth is,” she adds. “That’s improvement.”

Balanced Pictures

With thousands of trained, volunteer peer reviewers, the process allows for a “balanced, objective and apolitical” review of improvement efforts while building the capacity for change, says Mark Elgart, president and CEO of Cognia, which accredits more than 25,000 schools and education institutions nationwide.

“This a benefit of accreditation,” Elgart says. “We don’t just focus on what they’re not doing. We identify what they’re doing well and encourage them to keep doing that. We identify where they need improvements and give them direction.”
Accrediting agencies use their membership pools to secure peer reviewers, says Edwards, who has served more than 30 times as a reviewer, giving “context and perspective” to educators who often “are very isolated in their work.” Being a peer reviewer, he adds, “gives you an opportunity to see how another school in another community educates their students.”

School system administrators interested in serving as peer reviewers should contact their accreditation agency. Click here to see the directory.

— LINDA CHION KENNEY