Teacher Preparation: Reforming the Uncertain Profession

In this paper, the Arne Duncan, the United States Secretary of Education, discusses the need for a sea change in America's schools of education, and focuses on the need to improve teacher preparation programs. Many schools of education have provided high-quality preparation programs for aspiring teachers for years. In the last decade, many education schools have also upgraded their programs or launched rigorous practice-based initiatives to adapt to the realities of preparing instructors to teach diverse students in the information age. Yet, many of the nation's 1,450 schools, colleges, and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st century classroom. America's university-based teacher preparation programs need revolutionary change--not evolutionary tinkering. Duncan contends that, to keep America competitive, and to make the American dream of equal educational opportunity a reality, schools of education need to recruit, reward, train, learn from, and honor a new generation of talented teachers. He urges every teacher education program today to make better outcomes for students the overarching mission that propels all their efforts. America's great educational challenges require that this new generation of well-prepared teachers significantly boost student learning and increase college-readiness.