The Policy Agenda for Teacher Education: The Ohio Story

Overview & Synopsis

The purpose of this essay is to call for an active engagement of professional education faculty in the policy issues on teacher education. In this era of standards and accountability, an unprecedented number of legislative decisions for the education field have been made at the national and state levels, with or without sufficient involvement from education faculty. Various interest groups are attempting to reshape the landscape of teacher preparation in the nation. The provisions and requirements in the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) pertaining to the preparation, recruitment, and retention of teachers--possibly the most complex, challenging and far-reaching parts in the Act--have been pushing real policy changes in states to a new height. In Ohio, a number of legislative actions have taken place in recent years that will undoubtedly change the practice of all 50 institutions of higher education that prepare teachers and other school personnel. Consequently, the impact will extend onto individual programs and the professional life of faculty members, including professional teacher education faculty and Arts and Sciences faculty. This paper provides an analysis of the competing agendas driving teacher education practice in the nation, and tells an Ohio story based on the author's involvement and observations as a faculty member. The author recommends that faculty should learn to get politically smart, rethink the strategies for engaging in the debate about teacher education policy, and with an enhanced credibility, keep teacher education on a solid theoretical ground that most professional educators would agree with and endorse.