ABSTRACT
Currently, there is an intense debate that is taking place in many parts of the world about the kind of teaching and teacher education that should define education in the twenty-first century. For most of the formal history of teacher education in the US, a variety of pathways into teaching have existed both inside and outside colleges and universities. Currently in the US, as in many other countries in the world, there are serious gaps in opportunities to learn, school completion rates, and academic achievement for different segments of the population. There have been two major responses by the US government and private foundations to the enduring problems of teacher education over the last 40 years. The encouragement of alternatives to university hegemony over teacher education is not necessarily a bad thing. The role of alternative pathways into teaching has long been a part of teacher education in the US.
