Chapter 12: Epilogue

Educators have long struggled to define excellent teaching and have pondered the question of how best to prepare high quality teachers. In recent years, as the nation struggles to provide schooling for a diverse population, both the education of youth and the education of teachers have become political issues at national, state and local levels. Efforts to improve the education of all youth, ostensibly at least, are reflected in legislation at each of these levels as well. Significant federal legislation strives to drive the education of teachers. One example of this is Title II of the 1998 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. This act requires the Secretary of Education to issue reports to Congress on the progress being made to assure that there is, in fact, a qualified teacher in every classroom. The No Child Left Behind Act, the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, requires that by the end of the 2005-2006 academic year all teachers of core academic subjects will be highly qualified. Through this act, congress defines “qualified” as meaning both possessing state certification and demonstrated content knowledge. The emphasis, however, seems to be on content knowledge as demonstrated by appropriate scores on tests of content knowledge. In Secretary of Education Paige’s first report to Congress on teacher quality in 2002, he urged that states transform their certification systems by lowering barriers for teacher candidates who bring a strong content background. This push to assure teacher quality appears to be a prescription few can argue with. No parent, indeed, no citizen, would want less than a well-qualified teacher in every classroom. But as Whitson in Chapter 2, and others, point out, neither “highly qualified” nor quality teachers are easy to define. The Congressional solution of defining “qualified” primarily by a test score hardly seems adequate. And yet, as Whitson argues, teacher education, as currently conducted, is being challenged, is even under attack. Few educators would accept the definition of a “highly qualified” teacher as a high score on a test of content knowledge. At the same time, all is not well in many classrooms across the nation, and teacher educators would do well not to shy away from a reexamination of their craft. The question of how we can best prepare high quality teachers, who are well informed in their content fields, and also skilled in the many and varied tasks of teaching, remains a core challenge in teacher education.