Vernon C. Polite, member of the AACTE Board of Directors (2009-2010) and professor and dean of the College of Education at Eastern Michigan University, died March 8, 2010, after a prolonged illness. Polite was founding dean of the School of Education at Bowie State University in Maryland. He was appointed in 2005 to the deanship at Eastern Michigan University's acclaimed College of Education, the nation's largest producer of professional educators.

In recent months many AACTE members have been engaged with the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) in its efforts to scrutinize various aspects of teacher preparation programs. These efforts have utilized methodologies that do not meet the standards of basic scientific research. For example, they have assessed course syllabi and handbooks against "standards" – that are neither research based nor representative of any established consensus – as a means of evaluating teacher preparation programs.