The recent “Levine report” on teacher education—Educating School Teachers— points out many of the problems with teacher education in the US—low standards for entry and weak, superficial accreditation processes that allow poor quality of programs access to a stamp of approval. And, most importantly, the report highlights how universities have little motivation to reform teacher education because these programs generate big tuition dollars with little return investment.
While many of Levine’s proposed solutions to the problems of teacher education are unfortunate extensions of the standards-based, test-driven thinking that is proving disasterous in K-12 schools (see No Child Left Behind), he does call for “clear-eyed evaluation” of teacher education programs.
Clearly teacher education needs to be re-thought, but the “higher standards” argument offers little in the way of creative and potentially revolutionary options. Re-thinking teacher education requires a rethinking of schools and that means taking on status quo assumptions about schools, society, and the state.
Read Levine’s op-ed article in today’s Boston Globe: A higher bar for future teachers
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