Showing papers in "Journal of Teacher Education in 2006"

CONSTRUCTING 21st-CENTURY TEACHER EDUCATION

Abstract: Much of what teachers need to know to be successful is invisible to lay observers, leading to the view that teaching requires little formal study and to frequent disdain for teacher education programs. The weakness of traditional program models that are collections of largely unrelated courses reinforce this low regard. This article argues that we have learned a great deal about how to create stronger, more effective teacher education programs. Three critical components of such programs include tight coherence and integration among courses and between course work and clinical work in schools, extensive and intensely supervised clinical work integrated with course work using pedagogies linking theory and practice, and closer, proactive relationships with schools that serve diverse learners effectively and develop and model good teaching. Also, schools of education should resist pressures to water down preparation, which ultimately undermine the preparation of entering teachers, the reputation of schools of education, and the strength of the profession.

Assessing teacher education the usefulness of multiple measures for assessing program outcomes

Abstract: Productive strategies for evaluating outcomes are becoming increasingly important for the improvement, and even the survival, of teacher education. This article describes a set of research and asse...

Reflections of a University-Based Teacher Educator on the Future of College- and University-Based Teacher Education:

Abstract: Drawing on his nearly 30 years as a university teacher educator, the author reflects about the future of college- and university-based teacher education in the United States in light of recent atta...

Evidence in Teacher Education: The Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT)

Abstract: The Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) was developed in response to a California State mandate (SB 2042), requiring teacher preparation programs to use performance assessments as one measure in making credentialing decisions. In this article, results are examined from statewide implementation of the PACT assessments during the first 2 pilot years. Despite the limitation of only 2 years of data, 3 years of implementation experiences have informed participating programs about how they can better support candidate learning and identify areas for examination. In addition, this research suggests that the PACT performance assessment can be used in teacher education as a valid measure of individual teacher competence for the purpose of teacher licensure and as a powerful tool for teacher learning and program improvement.

Lessons from Teachers

Abstract: This article argues that with changes in attitudes and actions in classrooms, teachers can alter what happens in urban schools and transform the lives of students. Ten precepts are offered to assist them in that role: teach more, not less, content to poor, urban children; ensure all children gain access to conventions/strategies essential to success in American society; whatever methodology/instructional program used, demand critical thinking; provide the emotional ego strength to challenge racist societal views of the competence and worthiness of children and their families; recognize and build on children’s strengths; use familiar metaphors, analogies, and experiences from the children’s world to connect what children already know to school knowledge; create a sense of family and caring in the service of academic achievement; monitor/assess children’s needs and address them with a wealth of diverse strategies; honor and respect children’s home culture; and foster a sense of children’s connection to comm...

Too Little or Too Much: Teacher Preparation and the First Years of Teaching

Abstract: Exhilarated and exhausted, hopeful and cynical, fulfilled and dejected--these adjectives depict the emotional spectrum characterizing teachers' 1st-year experiences. Narratives of teachers' initial years speak to the gritty reality of "really learning to teach." Their stories tell of the challenges experienced as they come to understand the depth and texture of their students' lives and their unique developmental needs. They work to develop humane, yet efficient, routines to manage the daily business of classroom and school life. They struggle to design engaging curriculum and to build knowledge of rigorous and fair standards for student work. They try to fend off fatigue, seeking to balance career demands with activities and connections that rejuvenate. They grapple with the absurdities and paradoxes of school bureaucracies, choosing when to critique and resist ill-framed policies and practices. They stumble in some interactions with colleagues, administrators, and parents. They wonder why their trying work and hard-won accomplishments are viewed with such low regard by the general public. In short, narratives of first years pivot between epiphany and disillusionment (e.g., Johnston, 2002; Kane, 1991; Michie, 1999). The challenges brought to life in these narratives are persistently documented in the research literature (Fuller, 1969; Roehrig, Pressley, & Talotta, 2002; Veenman, 1984). Difficulties in the first years of teaching have implications for both practice and policy, particularly because the estimated financial cost of teacher turnover is US$2.6 billion annually (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2004). Furthermore, although we expect most 1st-year teachers will encounter some difficulties, there is emerging evidence that those prepared in powerful teacher preparation programs seem to manage the vicissitudes more adeptly than others (Darling-Hammond, 2006) and that quality induction programs matter (Britton, Paine, Pimm, & Raizen, 2003; Johnson & The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, 2004; Molner-Kelly, 2004). With these realities in mind, what can and should we expect of teacher education? Is teacher education doing too little or too much to prepare teachers for the first years of teaching? To educate and support beginning teachers, we need to know about their development and the contexts in which it takes place. THE FIRST YEARS Studies of new teachers' development outline typical stages (e.g., Berliner, 1994; Bullough & Baughman, 1997; Feiman-Nemser, 1983; Huberman, 1989). Whether beginnings are easy or painful, survival remains a prominent theme for the initial months, as new teachers resolve discipline and management problems. The intense survival stage gives way, often by the middle of the 1st year, to a focus on curriculum, teaching practices, and eventually student learning. Most studies present a progression toward mastery or expertise, achieved some time in the 4th year of teaching or beyond. (1) More recent frameworks to conceptualize teacher learning and development draw on the notions of adaptive expertise (Hammerness, Darling-Hammond, & Bransford, 2005), progressive differentiation (Snow, Griffin, & Burns, 2005), and a professional learning continuum (Feiman-Nemser, 2001). Teachers as "adaptive experts" frames expertise along two dimensions--efficiency and innovation. That is, expertise involves both the ability to "perform particular tasks without having to devote too many attentional resources to achieve them" and the ability to "move beyond existing routines ... to rethink key ideas, practices, and even values in order to" respond to novel situations (Hammerness et al., 2005, pp. 358-359). In a similar manner, Snow and her colleagues' (2005) conception of "progressive differentiation" outlines five levels of knowledge teachers draw on (declarative, situated procedural, stable procedural, expert/adaptive, and reflective/analyzed). …

A Candid Talk to Teacher Educators about Effectively Preparing Teachers Who Can Teach Everyone's Children.

Abstract: This article focuses on characteristics necessary to be an effective teacher for all children, regardless of their academic ability, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, family structure, sexual orient...

Complex by Design: Investigating Pathways into Teaching in New York City Schools.

Abstract: New York City represents a microcosm of the changes that are shaking the very foundations of teacher education in this country. In their efforts to find teachers for hard-to-staff schools by creating multiple pathways into teaching, districts from New York City to Los Angeles are in the midst of what amounts to a national experiment in how best to recruit, prepare, and retain teachers. This article provides an overview of a research project that examines features of these different pathways into teaching in New York City schools and the impact of these features on where teachers teach, how long they remain in the classroom, and student achievement in reading and math as measured by value-added analyses. The article provides both a conceptual framework for the study and a discussion of some of the methodological challenges involved in such research, including problems of selection bias, difficulties in documenting programmatic features, and challenges of estimating teacher effects on student achievement.

Knowledge and Vision in Teaching

Abstract: The author challenges the role of knowledge in teaching by pointing out the variety of issues and concerns teachers must simultaneously address. Teachers use two strategies to manage their multidimensional space: They develop integrated habits and rules of thumb for handling situations as they arise, and they plan their lessons by envisioning them unfolding as a drama might. It is entirely unclear where or how knowledge enhances teachers’ visions, but it is very clear that visions depend on a strong sense of purpose, direction, and momentum. Most teacher educators try to foster visions in their students, but their interest in vision creates two problems. First, it places them in conflict with their university brethren who expect to see them promulgating knowledge. Second, the particular vision they embrace is too narrowly progressive; it ignores many concerns that teachers try to juggle in their practice and many societal ideals for education as well.

Do Professional Development Schools (PDSs) Make a Difference? A Comparative Study of PDS and Non-PDS Teacher Candidates:

Abstract: This study assesses the impact of professional development schools (PDSs) on preservice teachers, comparing PDS and non-PDS candidates at the point of licensure. Data sources include student teaching evaluations and portfolio presentations. Statistical analyses reveal PDS candidates scored significantly higher than non-PDS candidates on aspects of planning, instruction, management, and assessment. Qualitative analysis of portfolio presentations reveals PDS candidates showed greater ownership of their school and classroom and more sophistication in applying and integrating Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium standards. Five differences are discussed: how and why versus what, standards connected versus standards isolated, assessment as driving instruction versus assessment as tools, reflection connected to practice versus reflection not connected to practice, and student focus versus self-focus. Contextual and programmatic differences are used to explain the differences. The case is made that PDS graduates may affect student learning sooner than traditionally trained beginning teachers.

Investigating Early Career Urban Teachers' Perspectives on and Experiences in Professional Development.

Abstract: Despite their interconnectedness, teacher education, teacher development, and teacher retention are often treated as discrete domains of inquiry. This article and the research on which it reports resist such compartmentalization and instead focus on relationships between teachers' pasts, presents, and futures. In particular, this qualitative study of 15 specialized teacher education program graduates examines urban teachers' perspectives on and experiences in professional development. Specific attention is paid to the role of professional development—in conjunction with other forces, including preservice preparation and workplace conditions—in shaping teachers' attitudes about their work and their professional futures. Findings illuminate four kinds of complexity underlying teachers' early career needs that are discussed and used to generate suggestions for how universities might better support teacher education program graduates to build rewarding and effective long-term careers in education.

Beginning Teachers and the Emotional Drama of the Classroom

Abstract: As a teacher educator, the author believes that he must prepare teachers to go forth into schools with a deep understanding of the subjects they will teach, an appreciation for how students learn, and a repertoire of instructional strategies that will help them make learning come alive for their students. As they develop these skills, they must simultaneously work on resolving four inescapable challenges: First, they have to figure out what it means to be a novice. Second, although teaching is intellectually challenging, it is also chock full of emotional drama. How students negotiate the emotional terrain of teaching is a critical element of their experience. Third, the author thinks about how a primary challenge for teachers is to secure the genuine attention of students. Fourth, the author considers what it means for young teachers to take care of their health and spirit amid the stress that marks the 1st year of teaching.

Moving Beyond the “Get it or Don’t” Conception of Formative Assessment:

Abstract: This article proposes a model of formative assessment grounded in Vygotsky’s theory of concept formation and argues that this model can provide a useful framework for facilitating a beginning teacher’s continued learning. The model is used to argue that beginning teachers need to know how to recognize, describe, and use students’ prior knowledge not only in terms of whether students get the academic concept but also in terms of the valuable, experience-based aspects of what students do know. The author demonstrates the model’s utility by describing the results of a 3-year classroom research study on preservice teachers’ conceptions of students’ prior knowledge and formative assessment. A “get it or don’t” conception was commonly used by preservice teachers and was found to have serious impacts on their instructional practices. The article concludes by exploring the potential of a theory-enhanced model of formative assessment for teacher educators’ own instructional practices.

A systemic approach to enhancing teacher quality : The ohio model

Abstract: All those responsible for the preparation of teachers agree that having a highly qualified teacher in every classroom is essential to student academic achievement. The research of the past decade by William Sanders and others clearly demonstrates the significance of the teacher in fostering student growth and academic achievement. What researchers and practitioners are having difficulty agreeing on is the essential characteristics of the teachers who create value-added learning and the ways in which professional development experiences need to be structured in order to foster and develop those critical teacher characteristics. The Ohio Teacher Quality Partnership represents one state's approach to better understand the relationship between teacher behaviors and student achievement and how a wide variety of stakeholders are collaborating to create a more vital educational system for P-12 students.

Value-Added Assessment of Teacher Preparation: An Illustration of Emerging Technology.

Abstract: Broad-based empirical outcomes assessment is an increasingly evident part of governmental services and this trend is particularly apparent in education. The clearest manifestation of this trend in education has been the advent of high-stakes broad-based testing and accountability programs in K-12 education. Although this assessment regime has not yet been used to assess the efficacy of teacher preparation programs, the data management capacity and statistical technology is now emerging to make this possible. This article presents data from the 1st year of a pilot study examining the methodological and practical issues involved in implementing a value-added assessment of teacher preparation based on a massive multivariate longitudinal database. The pilot data are discussed in relation to the literature pertaining to value-added assessments in K-12 education. Selected research needs and practical concerns related to the use of value-added models for the assessment of teacher preparation are discussed.

How Well Do 1st-Year Teachers Teach: Does Type of Preparation Make a Difference?.

Abstract: The authors present a program of research on the teaching practices of 1st-year teachers that has evolved within a partnership between and among a university and area school districts. The research links observed 1st-year teaching practices with school level (elementary, middle, high school) and type of teacher preparation (traditional bachelor's degree or nontraditional master's degree or postbaccalaureate certification). This study was conducted during 3 consecutive years, and results suggest that 1st-year teachers, as a group, performed adequately. School-level analyses reveal higher quality classroom management practices at the elementary level. Type of preparation analyses reveal higher quality management practices among teachers who attended traditional programs. The potential interaction between school level and type of preparation was not definitive but suggests further research is needed on the match between type of preparation and school level as expressed in quality of teaching practices.

What Do Beginning Teachers Need to Know? An Essay.

Abstract: Do we prepare teachers for the schools we wish all children could attend or do we prepare teachers for the schools where they are most likely to find a position? The authors address the often-asked question What do beginning teachers need to know? by making the case that we must prepare teachers for the disparate conditions found on the educational landscape. Public policy decisions, economic conditions, and the teaching profession itself have created two systems of schooling in America. One system values the professionalism of teachers and believes education is broad in its definition. The other system offers a myopic focus on test scores and defines teaching as nothing more than content delivery. Schools of education must become agents of change by preparing teachers steeped in the realities of modern schools but aware of the power of an individual teacher to impart change.

Setting Up Camp at the Great Instructional Divide: Educating Beginning History Teachers.

Abstract: This article sketches out a comprehensive approach for preparing history teachers. It argues that grounding in historical content knowledge is necessary for success in the classroom, but such groun...

Addressing Linguistic Diversity from the Outset

Abstract: Schools of education typically prepare their prospective teachers to work with amorphous “average students”—who are by implication middle class, native, English speaking, and White. They are then given some limited opportunities to adapt these understandings to students with diverging profiles—children of poverty, second language learners, and students of color. The authors argue that given the changing demographics of public schools, initial teacher education should be based on the understandings that teachers typically do not receive until the end of their programs or in add-on endorsements. They should be prepared from the outset to work with the wide diversity of language, culture, and class that they are likely to meet in public schools. Ten recommendations are presented for “What Every Teacher Should Do” to work effectively in the linguistically and culturally diverse settings they are likely to encounter.

The Role of Context in Learning to Teach Writing: What Teacher Educators Need to Know to Support Beginning Urban Teachers

Abstract: The yearlong qualitative study this article describes explores how three beginning elementary teachers in urban schools struggled with policy, students, and their own commitment of learning to teach writing to their students. Findings indicate that beginning teachers learned to teach writing by drawing on a variety of knowledge sources, that beginning teachers' writing instruction was heavily influenced by various aspects of their individual teaching contexts, and that because these various aspects of teaching context often conflicted with each other, creating tensions for the beginning teacher, learning to teach writing was strongly shaped by how each teacher learned to manage the various conflicting aspects of her individual teaching context. Implications for teacher education emerged and include focusing on writing pedagogy, examining teaching contexts and decision making within various settings, and using case studies to examine how experienced teachers work successfully within a variety of teaching c...

Finding a Canon and Core: Meditations on the Preparation of Teacher Educator-Researchers

Abstract: In this article, the author explores seven “unanswered questions” concerning the preparation of future teacher educator-researchers. She considers five questions concerning the substance of doctoral preparation: what the new generation of teacher-researchers would need to know about teacher education, relevant disciplines, research methodologies, teaching in universities, and K-12 schooling. She then briefly discusses the need to theorize about how doctoral students learn to teach and conduct research. In essence, the author proposes a curriculum for her own learning as a mentor and advisor in a doctoral program for future teacher educator-researchers.

Evidence in Teacher Preparation: Establishing a Framework for Accountability

Abstract: This article reports on a survey examining the state of knowledge and practice about how universities provide evidence of the effectiveness of their programs to schools, parents, policy makers, and the public. The project asked three questions: What is happening? What is promising? What is believable? The survey focused on two areas: results and outcomes, and issues in measurement. Data from this study reveal that state colleges and universities are expending extraordinary energy and resources assessing prospective teachers and compiling data about teacher preparation programs. The survey data uncover the myriad issues that confound the data collection process, the difficulties around establishing validity and reliability, and the extraordinary demands placed on programs to produce data for a variety of constituencies. Recommendations are made for the development of a national framework for evidence, guidelines that institutions can use to proactively develop data systems that promote a culture of evidenc...

Teaching African American English Forms to Standard American English-Speaking Teachers: Effects on Acquisition, Attitudes, and Responses to Student Use.

Abstract: Many U.S. students speak nonstandard forms of English, yet dialect issues are slighted in teacher education programs and literacy courses. In this study, classroom teachers who spoke Standard American English (SE) were familiarized with seven syntactic features characterizing African American English (AAE). Three approaches to instruction based on a cognitive view of self-regulated learning were compared: exposure to the features by reading AAE text (E); exposure plus explanation of dialect transformation strategies (ES); and exposure, strategy explanation, and guided practice transforming sentences from SE to AAE (ESP). On posttests, all forms of instruction improved teachers’ knowledge and positive attitude toward AAE. However, ESP instruction proved more effective in teaching teachers how to translate sentences into AAE and to use AAE in writing stories. Results support the value of implementing self-regulated learning theory and reveal effective ways to teach dialect features to teachers so they can h...

Effective Teaching/Effective Urban Teaching Grappling with Definitions, Grappling with Difference

Abstract: This article considers the ways in which 17 novice teachers define and describe effective urban teaching and the stark contrasts that these teachers draw between effective urban teaching and effective teaching The authors find that descriptions of students played a considerable role when participants made distinctions between effective teaching and effective urban teaching These teachers defined the two types of teaching largely in terms of perceived behaviors, beliefs, and characteristics of urban and suburban students that were chiefly based on monolithic group stereotypes and in the case of students of color, were deficit laden

The Teacher Effectiveness Movement: How 80 Years of Essentialist Control Have Shaped the Teacher Education Profession

Abstract: The locus of control in teacher education has been outside the hands of those who educate our nation’s teachers for more than a century. Essentialists have long controlled the agenda for public sch...

Scaling Up Research in Teacher Education: New Demands on Theory, Measurement, and Design.

Abstract: A recent report of the American Educational Research Association Panel on Research and Teacher Education confirms beyond question earlier findings exposing the limited utility of our research base ...

Exploring the Efficacy of the Cook School District Simulation

Abstract: Cook School District is a Web-based simulation designed to allow teacher candidates an opportunity to explore connections between their actions as teachers and the learning and engagement of simulated students. The simulation provides a setting in which to practice the processes inherent in teacher work sample methodology (TWSM). The outcomes of TWSM include analyzing the context in which teaching and learning will occur; identifying outcomes to be learned; designing and administering a pretest to evaluate prior knowledge; designing and delivering instruction, differentiating curriculum, instruction, and/or assessment as appropriate; and postassessing student learning to determine the “value added” or teacher effects on learning and engagement. Quasi-experimental research demonstrates the efficacy of the simulation to (a) improve scores on a real teacher work sample, (b) improve field-based lesson teaching performance, and (c) affect users’ perceptions of their skillfulness and valuing of concepts underly...

A Conversation of Many Voices: Critiques and Visions of Teacher Education

Abstract: It's on the horizon again, another looming "crisis" in teacher education. These predicaments don't seem to go away or get resolved. A state of perpetual professional calamity seems to threaten, characterize, and inform the teacher education endeavor. Whether the decade is the 1930s with Teachers College Dean William Russell's (1936) call for a "new charter for teacher education," the 1960s with Koerner's (1963) and Conant's (1963) respective critiques of teacher preparation, or the 1980s with the uproar initiated by Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), teacher education has been inundated by multiple and persistent criticisms. Some claim that schools of education overemphasize theory and inadequately address the practical realities of contemporary classrooms. Others argue that these centers of professional preparation lack intellectual substance and focus instead on pedagogical pedantry. Still others maintain that teacher educators engage in a form of leftist-liberal indoctrination. And finally, some assert that most university-based teacher preparation involves too many regulatory hurdles, discouraging the best college students from pursuing this profession. With most of these criticisms comes the charge that teacher education is, at best, ineffectual and, at worst, harmful and insidiously ideological. In contrast to these mostly external critics, people within schools, colleges, and departments of education argue that our current public schools embrace a 19th-century understanding of student learning; that our public schools' promise of equal opportunity has yet to be delivered; that schools, as workplaces, discourage innovation and collaboration; and that the current and outdated factory model of schooling needs to be reformed so as to prepare students for productive lives in a world characterized by rapid and accelerating change, and a technologically integrated global economy. These internal voices maintain that public schools need to better reflect our current understanding of learning and address the pressing needs of our unequal and unjust social order. Recognizing the teacher's critical role in shaping students' educational experiences, they argue for preparing beginning teachers to teach in reformed and socially just ways. In addition, those inside schools of education turn a critical eye toward teacher preparation, where they note the wide variability in both the content and rigor in teacher education programs and ways in which the fiscal and organizational realities of institutions of higher education work against coherence and depth in teacher preparation. The voices within and outside teacher education are not aligned neatly against each other. Certainly, some critics inside our professional schools agree with the external critics and some of the external voices are sympathetic to the obstacles of institutional life. These areas of overlap notwithstanding, it is the case that there are multiple, radically different views of the state of teacher education today. It is time, we think, to engage these varied voices, to have a conversation around these different views of teacher education. But before embarking on this conversation, it is informative to look briefly at several recent efforts to more fully examine and respond to the current crisis. THE CURRENT CLIMATE OF COMMENTARY AND CRITIQUE Recently, prominent scholars of teacher education have published major tomes on the state of teacher education and teacher education research. Preparing Teachers for a Changing World, edited by Linda Darling-Hammond and John Bransford (2005), is the result of work conducted by the National Academy of Education's Committee on Teacher Education (CTE). The volume outlines core concepts and pedagogical strategies that should inform initial teacher preparation and argues for the need to improve the context within which teacher preparation programs operate, so that beginning teachers, like their students, are optimally prepared to succeed. …

Who Should Be Accountable for What Beginning Teachers Need to Know

Abstract: Who should be accountable for what beginning teachers need to know? This article first explains and illustrates three sets of knowledge and skills beginning teachers should have acquired in their p...

Taking Stock in 2006: Evidence, Evidence Everywhere

Abstract: In her history of education research, Ellen Lagemann (2000) suggested that during the 20th century, education had a "romance with quantification" (p. ix) that was reflected in its penchant for counting, measuring, and calculating in order to resemble the hard sciences as closely as possible. In this editorial, I argue that although education has in no way broken off its love affair with quantification, its current paramour is evidence, and the affair is hot and heavy in teacher education. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that evidence--or at least talk about evidence--is now everywhere in teacher education research, policy, and practice. This editorial describes and critiques the current focus on evidence, making the argument that although it has great potential to improve teacher education, it also has troubling aspects that need to be acknowledged and debated. (1) EVIDENCE EVERYWHERE Teacher education's current preoccupation with evidence is consistent with the way the standards movement has evolved and with the trend toward evidence-based practice in education writ large. It is important to note, however, that although there have long been several lines of research related to the effects of teacher education (Cochran-Smith & Fries, 2005; Kennedy, 1999), the current intense focus on evidence in teacher education practice and policy is a significant departure from far and recent past. The major reforms of the 1980s and early 1990s, for example, demanded that teacher education be more coherent and intellectually rigorous (e.g., Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, 1986; Holmes Group, 1986), whereas reformers like John Goodlad (1990) argued that school renewal and teacher education reform should proceed simultaneously based on moral purposes. During this same time period, revised National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) accreditation standards pushed teacher education to concentrate on the professional knowledge base and be explicit about the conceptual frameworks that guided programs (Christensen, 1996). None of these reforms had much to do with evidence. Currently however, in debates about large-scale teacher education policies and in the federal and state regulations related to individual teacher preparation programs and pathways, evidence is front and center. For example, advocates of differing teacher education pathways often support their positions by citing empirical evidence that they claim demonstrates a positive relationship between particular pathways and school outcomes and conversely, reject the positions of their opponents on the grounds that the opponent's evidence is flimsy or faulty (e.g., Ballou & Podgursky, 2000; Darling-Hammond, 2000). Along similar lines, critics of collegiate teacher education and state certification often make their arguments on the basis of the claim that there is an absence of evidence about their efficacy (e.g., Abell Foundation, 2001; Hess, 2001) and thus conclude that new approaches are needed. The Title II teacher quality reporting requirements that went into effect in 1998 following the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act are perhaps the most striking example of the current emphasis on evidence in teacher education. Title II requires that all states provide annual evidence to the federal government about the quality of teacher preparation, which in turn depends on institutions providing annual evidence to the state about the qualifications (especially scores on state teacher tests) of every candidate recommended for certification. The fourth annual report to Congress on teacher quality (U.S. Department of Education, 2005)--the first issued by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings--stated that the collection of "objective data" from every state regarding teacher preparation and certification has made possible the "first national systematic and comprehensive data resource about teacher preparation" (p. …