American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE)

Activities

The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education organizes conferences, training programs, institutional partnerships, and research programs for its member colleges to support teacher training. ³

AACTE has advocated against education ranking systems. In 2011, AACTE issued a statement to its members condemning the National Council on Teacher Quality and U.S. News and World Report’s ranking system of 1,400 American universities. The letter accused the ranking system of being arbitrary and recommended that its members not participate in its surveys. ⁴

Advocacy

In May 2025, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education advocated against the Second Trump administration allegedly defunding several education grant programs from which its member colleges benefit such as the Teacher Quality Partnership Grants and the Special Education Personnel Preparation grants. Out of $163 billion in proposed budget cuts, $12 billion targeted the U.S. Department of Education. ⁵

In March 2025, AACTE filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump and the Department of Education after the Trump administration cut the department’s budget by $600 million through an executive order which intended to target wasteful spending and cut down on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. The suit alleged that the Trump administration terminated numerous education grants unlawfully. ⁶

In May 2022, AACTE issued a public statement condemning active or then-pending legislation in 30 states that sought to place restrictions on how certain topics were taught in the classroom including the LGBT community, Native Americans, antisemitism, and Black Lives Matter. In the statement, AACTE also stated that it supports legislation to fund training for teachers to teach LGBT-related matters. ⁷ AACTE has described efforts to regulate school curricula as “censorship,” and AACTE has described regulations on diversity, equity, and inclusion lessons in schools as “eradicating ethno-racial diversity in schools.” ⁸

In 2015, AACTE condemned a new set of rules proposed by the Department of Education under the Higher Education Act to increase federal monitoring of teacher training programs while cutting federal grants to the lowest rated programs. ⁹

Controversy

In August 2025, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) fellow Daniel Buck reported on an American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education presentation entitled, “Queering the Curriculum: Advocating for and Affirming LGBTQIA+ Identities in the Teacher Education Curriculum in Changing Times.” One of the seminar’s presenters, New York University professor Stacie Brensilver Berman, advised teachers to use “loopholes” in law and university rules to promote activist curricula across all disciplines, including “social studies, English, science, math, art, music.” Other presenters encouraged teachers to oppose the “family unit” and bring students to protests. ¹⁰

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education considers diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to be a “core value” of the organization. ¹¹ In 2020, after the death of George Floyd, AACTE created a “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Handbook” to teach educators how to introduce DEI principles into their teaching. In addition to regularly hosting DEI seminars and producing DEI videos, AACTE runs the Holmes Programs to provide special support to racial minority teachers. ¹²

Leadership

Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy took over as the CEO and president of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education in January 2025. She has worked as a professor and administrator at American University since July 2016, and previously worked at Johns Hopkins University where she launched the Johns Hopkins School Counseling Fellows Program and the Faculty Diversity Initiative. Earlier, Holcomb-McCoy worked at the University of Maryland and Brooklyn College. In 2023, Holcomb-McCoy was an Aspen Institute ASCEND Fellow. ^{13 14}

Financials

In 2023, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education generated $4,619,181 in revenue, reported $5,464,259 in expenses, and ended the year with $8,867,801 in assets. AACTE earns most of its revenue from membership dues, but receives some funding from nonprofit grants. For instance, since 2006, AACTE has received two grants from the Ford Foundation. ^{15 16}