Educating Preservice Teachers: The State of Affairs
Standards for Beginning Language Arts Teachers
In its publication What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (1996), analyzed schools of education and reported that they had "major flaws in teacher preparation" and "unenforced standards for teachers" (p. 10). Beginning with the premise that the quality of teachers is the most important factor in children's education, the commission makes two recommendations to improve student learning. First, it calls for "renewing the national promise to bring every American child up to world-class standards in core academic areas" (p. 64). Second, it recommends "developing and enforcing rigorous standards for teacher preparation, initial licensing, and continuing development" (p. 64). A performance-based standards approach to teacher licensing and certification is a significant departure from traditional methods that have prescribed testing, credits, and courses as the primary requirements for becoming a teacher.
The seven states in NCREL's region—Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin—are at different stages of standard development. Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin have standards for student learning. Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have a set of standards for beginning teachers' performances. Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota have specific standards for elementary language arts teachers, and Wisconsin's standards are in the draft stage.
The Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) is the organization that has been the most influential in the development of state and local teacher-education standards. Through a process initiated in 1990, this group created a set of standards intended to serve as a framework to guide reform in schools of education. Based on a learner-centered form of instruction, the standards describe teachers who can "adapt instruction to student understandings and needs" and facilitate "teachers' deep knowledge of subjects and students" (INTASC, 1995). These standards have undergone extensive public review and have been used by many institutions and state departments as guidelines for standards-based teacher licensing.
Like all current standards, both those for students and for educators, INTASC standards are "performance based," meaning that they describe what "teachers should know, be like, and be able to do" (INTASC, 1995). This system, according to INTASC, resembles that of other professions in which candidates must pass rigorous examinations to be licensed in the profession and consequently produce better teachers.
Other prominent organizations also have participated in the movement to produce performance standards for beginning teachers. The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE, 2000) has established criteria for the content and pedagogical knowledge necessary for preservice teachers to enter the profession. Also, two of the standards by which NCATE evaluates schools of education deal with future teachers' performances and their assessment (NCATE, 2001b).
Another national organization that focuses on teacher standards is the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Through the rigorous process of National Board certification, experienced teachers demonstrate their excellence in a set of standards created to describe effective teaching. The expectation is for teachers to move easily from the standards for new teachers to those describing mature, accomplished teaching (National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, 2001).
Finally, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the International Reading Association (IRA) have developed documents specifically aimed at the preparation of language arts teachers. Both of the documents are extensive and thorough and are an excellent resource for any educational institution preparing to undertake the development of standards for language arts teachers. Guidelines for the Preparation of Teachers of English Language Arts (NCTE, 1996) is "a statement of what effective teachers of the English language arts need to know and be able to do" (NCTE, 1996, p. 1). This document is written in standards format and emphasizes attitudes, content knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge and skills necessary for effective language arts instruction.
The IRA's publication Standards for Reading Professionals, revised in 1998, describes "what reading professionals should know about the literacy process and the teaching proficiencies they should possess to effectively apply that knowledge to the development of literacy in individuals of all ages and levels" (IRA, 1998, p. iv). These standards, which cover knowledge and beliefs about literacy, are organized in a matrix according to different categories of educators: classroom professionals—including early childhood, elementary, and middle and secondary teachers; special education teachers; adult-education teachers; specialized reading professionals; and allied professionals. Each standard is labeled as necessary at the following levels: awareness, basic understanding, comprehensive understanding, or not applicable.
State standards for student learning increasingly reflect an approach to instruction in which learners experience concepts and socially negotiate their meaning in the authentic context of complex learning environments. As the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (1996) observed, "Teaching in ways that help diverse learners master challenging content is much more complex than teaching for rote recall or low-level basic skills" (p. 27). Many educators and policymakers believe that standards for teachers will help achieve the goal of more in-depth learning for students.