ABSTRACT
In this chapter we explore teacher education quality in the context of teacher quality. We see it as obvious that you can’t have high quality teacher education programs that don’t produce high quality teachers. So, how should we define quality in these contexts. Obviously, high quality teachers are effective in the classroom, but how do we know? We do know that many policies are pressing teacher education programs to use standardized test outcomes as the measures, even if the Congress turns the responsibility over to the states and withdraws from making requirements a part of policy. In this case study of teacher education at Montclair State University, two educators who were at the center of the changes that have occurred over the past four decades and more reflect on the importance of these changes to teacher quality and teacher education quality, along with the conditions and actions that brought them into reality. We know that actions by educators alone would not have been enough, had conditions to allow them to succeed not been present. So this is a retrospective analysis and reflection on change and the outcomes that emerged, with an effort to explain why change worked and has been sustained. We also consider continued challenges to that sustainability.
