ABSTRACT
This chapter considers teacher quality issues as they connect to and play out in policies, reform initiatives, and controversies related to initial teacher preparation. It examines several contemporary US education reforms that were explicitly designed to improve teacher preparation to enhance teacher quality. In the US the importance of education was thrown into sharp relief with the publication of A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence and Education, 1983), which connected mediocre student performance to sluggish global economic performance and warned the nation of dire consequences if the situation remained unchecked. The Higher Education Act (HEA), passed in 1965 and requiring periodic reauthorization by Congress, governs the administration of federal student aid programs in the US and teacher education providers must meet its reporting requirements to be eligible to distribute federal funds to students who are prospective teachers. It would be an understatement to say that the proposed HEA regulations were controversial.
