Faculty and Staff Profiles

John M. Johnston (Ph.D. in Teacher Education, Ohio State University) has been a kindergarten teacher and since 1978 a professor of Early Childhood teacher education.  

He has been actively involved in teacher education assessment and accreditation for most of his career.  He has participated in developing Early Childhood teacher education standards in Tennessee, Early Childhood Generalist standards for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and initial and advanced teacher standards for the National Association for the Education of Young Children.  He has worked with the Educational Testing Service to revise and develop better Early Childhood Praxis II examinations.   He participated in developing initial NBPTS Early Childhood Generalist certificate assessments, and also served as a scorer and trainer of scorers for selected NBPTS EC/Generalist assessments.  Most recently, he served as Co-chair of the NBPTS Early Childhood/Generalist standards committee which in 2010 completed the third revision of the EC/Generalist standards.

He has served on the Tennessee Board of Examiners for teacher education accreditation, and for 12 years served on the Board of Examiners of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE).  He presently serves as a member of the NCATE Specialty Areas Study Board where he chairs the SASB Standards Committee which reviews and approves teacher education standards submitted by NCATE member specialized professional associations.  He also served as a member of the recent Foundation for Child Development/NCATE National Expert Panel on Increasing the Application of Knowledge about Child and Adolescent Development and Learning in Educator Preparation Programs.

He currently serves on the NAEYC Audit and Advisory Committee which is responsible for auditing NAEYC/NCATE Early Childhood teacher education program reviews.  He also serves on the NAEYC Early Childhood Associate Degree Accreditation Commission which is responsible for making accreditation decisions for two-year associate degree Early Childhood programs. 

He served on the committee that developed the Teacher Performance Assessment Consotium (TPAC) Early Childhood Teacher Performance Assessment, and has been appointed by NAEYC to a small committee to align the ECEd Teacher Performance Assessment with the 2010 NAEYC Standards.

He serves as the Program Coordinator for the Early Childhood programs.