How Teacher Education Can Elevate Teacher Quality: Evidence From Research

Abstract

The set of papers in this issue of Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) is particularly timely, as it represents research that speaks directly to current issues of importance to diverse teacher education stakeholders. These stakeholders include, among others, university leaders, teacher educators, teacher preparation and professional development program designers, and policy makers. These papers touch on policies and practices intended to increase the quality of the teaching force, presenting evidence and analyses and highlighting the consequences of decisions about the design of systems for initial and continuing education of teachers. The collection is also significant in spanning the continuum of issues in teacher education, from assessments used for admission and graduation, to the nature and quality of professional support for beginning and experienced educators. The papers also represent a range of methodological approaches--quantitative, qualitative, and conceptual. In this editorial, we will consider the highlights and significance of each of these papers in turn. Evaluation of the quality of teacher preparation programs has long been an important policy topic. The United States, along with many other countries, has multiple systems for evaluating programs, with varying purposes, methods, and audiences (Feuer, Floden, Chudowsky, & Ahn, 2013). National systems of program accreditation have gained prominence, especially as many states have begun to require national accreditation. As two competing systems merged to form the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), a new set of standards were established. Key questions for policy and practice are what these standards should be and what evidence supports them. For the new CAEP standards, much debate has focused on what admission requirements should be for educator preparation programs. On its face, it seems reasonable to insist that programs restrict entry to those students likely to become high-quality teachers. An unintended consequence of using measures such as scores on college entry exams, however, may be the disproportionate effect on minority-serving institutions of higher education and the reduction in the numbers of graduates of color, just as the nation is calling for more teachers from underrepresented groups. Decisions about whether high entrance standards are, on balance, desirable should be informed by evidence on whether meeting such an entrance requirement is indeed necessary for becoming a high-quality teacher. Program representatives might also argue that, when they admit students with low college entry exam scores, they recognize that they will need to address weaknesses in content knowledge, and that they are committed to removing such weaknesses before recommending candidates for certification. What would be the problem, they might say, with admitting students with low entry scores, provided that they ensure that they have the necessary knowledge and skills before they are certified? The paper by Evans in this issue of the journal provides evidence to inform this debate about the CAEP standard concerning admissions requirements. Her paper addresses the degree to which measures used in making admissions decisions are predictive of prospective teachers' success, finding little evidence for some measures, but moderate predictive power for graduate grade point average (GPA). Another of her analyses reveals that setting high admission standards would have significant impact on enrollments in minority-serving programs, raising critical questions about their longterm sustainability. Current demands in the field require attention not only to program admission requirements but also to assessments candidates must undergo at the end of their program. The recent move toward performance assessments as uniform exit requirements has the potential to shift priorities away from what teachers know on paper-and-pencil licensure exams toward how they enact practices in context. …