ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the vexing issues that surround current efforts to improve student outcomes by improving teachers, teaching, and teacher education. It advances the profession's discussion about which reform paths show most promise, and what criteria educators should use to guide choices. Horace Mann's pioneering advocacy for the common school model, the earliest comprehensive effort to universalize and standardize US education, called for teachers who were systematically trained and professionally certified. The primary response of policy makers was to focus on education personnel, and to establish evaluation systems that would hold teachers accountable for increased student learning. Current and past efforts to evaluate teachers and teacher education programs reflect historical patterns of personnel evaluation that have dominated US organizations Evaluation models were developed to produce quantitative scores intended to objectively measure the performance of teachers and teacher education programs.
