ABSTRACT
The capacities teachers need to succeed at the twenty-first century agenda for education can only be widely acquired throughout the teaching force by major reforms of teacher preparation and major restructuring of the systems by which states and school districts license, hire, induct, support, and provide for the continual learning of teachers. As policymakers, practitioners, and the public have sought greater assurance that licensed teachers are well prepared for their work, new requirements for teacher education and certification have been promulgated with substantial zeal and alacrity. These include basic skills and subject-matter tests in a great many states and at least rudimentary tests of pedagogical knowledge in some. Whereas professional boards establish standards for education and entry in professions such as medicine, nursing, architecture, accounting, and law, until fairly recently such boards have been absent in teaching. Instead, hundreds of individual state mandates have controlled what is taught—as well as the standards that are used to grant a teaching license.
