Evidence, Efficacy, and Effectiveness

Recent challenges concerning the quality of teachers and the programs that prepare them have resulted in responses from professional organizations that have been more widespread and intense than in the past (Robinson, 2011; Wiseman, 2012). The Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation (BRP) formed by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), the merger of NCATE and Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) into Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) to improve teacher education (Cibulka, 2011), and the Teacher Performance Assessment Initiative which emerged from collaboration between the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT), the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) member institutions (Robinson, 2011) are examples of ways that professional organizations have responded to the challenges. In general, calls for performance assessments of teaching to provide both formative and summative information about the quality of teachers, teacher candidates, and teacher preparation programs pervade the current discourse on education at every level, including schools and districts, institutions of higher education, state and national policymaking entities, and professional organizations. As a result, a number of performance assessments have emerged that can provide feedback to teacher education programs about the strengths and weaknesses of their candidates as well as evidence for licensure and certification of teachers. For example, Education Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) was designed to provide information for program improvement through the use of a common set of performance assessments for preservice teachers and has also been adopted by states and districts for summative evaluation purposes (http://edtpa.aacte.org/). The multiple performance measures in systems like edTPA improve upon value added models (VAM) by providing information on teaching quality, not just teacher quality or teacher effectiveness, and provide information sooner than might be accomplished by use of VAM alone (Newton, 2010). For this theme issue, we invited research and conceptual articles related to teacher performance assessments specifically as they affect teacher education, including validation studies of measures used in the assessments. We posed a series of questions that we considered important for researchers to address related to performance assessments, including the following: What are the relationships between current performance assessments and teacher education, either conceptually or in terms of outcomes? What do we know about the use of performance assessments in the context of teacher education, and what do we need to know? How do performance assessments of teachers in schools map onto assessment of teacher education programs, or how don't they? What differences may exist across novice teachers and expert teachers with respect to performance assessment, and how does that impact their professional learning? What are the implications of the relationships between for-profit companies, university teacher education programs, researchers, states, and professional organizations with respect to performance assessments of teachers? What is the relationship between assessment criteria and the research on teaching and learning, and what are its implications for teacher education? How do states make decisions to move to statewide teacher assessment systems? What potential conflicts of interest may exist among various stakeholders in performance assessment efforts? How do policies related to performance assessment of teachers affect opportunities for teacher learning? What can we learn from the history of past efforts to evaluate beginning teachers? What is different this time? What do we know about the validity and reliability of performance assessments and why does this matter? …

The theme of accountability currently permeates conversations about education at every level, including teacher education and professional development. In our Call for Manuscripts for this theme issue, we invited empirical or conceptual manuscripts addressing assessment and accountability in teacher education that would move the community forward in considering the topics both more precisely and with greater complexity. The range of suggested subtopics and questions within assessment and accountability in teacher education was broad to elicit a wide range of responses. In general, we asked, Who is to be held accountable? For what? And by whom? As we reviewed the many excellent submissions, one predominant response to these questions centered on value-added modeling (VAM) approaches to accountability. Although this is only one of several answers to the questions we asked, it is one that has important intended and unintended consequences for various stakeholders in teacher education, including beginning teachers, mentor teachers, administrators, teacher educators, higher education institutions, and policy makers. Emergence of Value-Added Models for Teacher Education The rise of interest in VAM for teacher education is related to the search for the definition of teacher quality that has emerged as a primary factor in determination of K-12 student performance, probably as a confluence of a number of events (see Knight, 2011). The Tennessee study (Sanders & Horn, 1998), a landmark study using random assignment of teachers and students to classrooms, firmly established the advantage for students of having a high-quality teacher over a number of years. For many years, educators had struggled with the seemingly intractable socioeconomic factors related to poor student performance. The notion of teacher quality appeared to be manipulable and constituted a viable approach for closing student achievement gaps. Not only do teachers make a difference but their effectiveness can potentially be assessed, rewarded, and improved through recruitment, incentives, and/or professional development. No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top funding and legislation served to popularize the VAM approach for determination of teacher quality. Given the emphasis on teacher professional development as a contributor to teacher quality, the application of VAM approaches for teacher education accountability may have appeared to be an obvious connection to policy makers (see Floden, 2012 [this issue]). Despite the rather limited evidence of the impacts of teacher preparation programs on student achievement (Duckworth, Quinn, & Seligman, 2009), many policy makers concluded that the quality of teacher education preparation, as with individual teachers, can potentially be assessed, rewarded, and improved--or removed if necessary. However, just as VAM applied to determination of individual teacher quality resulted in a number of methodological, ethical, and other concerns, VAM used to determine the quality of teacher education programs carries similar concerns as well as others specific to teacher education. Possibilities and Limitations of VAM for Teacher Education In February 2012, Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) sponsored a Major Forum at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) Annual Meeting in Chicago that featured research using VAM for assessment of the quality of teacher education programs in several states and commentaries that focused participants on both the possibilities as well as the limitations of this approach. Participants agreed that the framing of VAM as a policy issue is important and that much is at stake as we consider the education of teachers and the education of young people in this country. Federal and state governments are investing a great deal of money in value-added assessment systems, and the consequences of policy implementation are complex and significant. …

Teacher education reform in the United States (US) is a crucial part of a broader educational reform intended to improve teaching practice and, thus, student performance (Darling-Hammond, 2005). Teacher education reform has become an international trend (Bates, 2008; Garm & Karlsen, 2004), which in spite of the different national contexts and traditions, shares a set of similar expectations, foci, and even policy interventions (Loomis, Rodriguez, & Tillman, 2008). Underlying these reforms are the assumptions that the quality of teaching is the most important, if not the only, factor that contributes to changes in student learning, which is shaped by factors such as teacher salaries, working conditions, and public support for public schools (Education Policy White Paper Project, 2009). Teacher education is a major factor in improving teaching quality (Delandshere & Petrosky, 2004). Central to the quality of teaching are teachers' deep understanding of what they need to teach and the pedagogical practices that can be used to represent such understanding to students (D. L. Ball, 2000). These have become important foci for reform in teacher education programs in many countries. Policy initiatives to reform teacher education have been very similarly framed, inasmuch as governments have played important roles in establishing standards for what teachers need to know and do in their classrooms and in developing relevant assessments to regulate what students have learned and done (Tatto, 2006). However, when these surface-level similarities are analyzed more deeply, one uncovers competing forces with different expectations, foci, and approaches to teacher education reform (Cochran-Smith, 2001). Each of these approaches reflects different ideologies and appeals to different political interests, but none receives substantial empirical support (Apple, 2001; Cochran-Smith & Fries, 2001; Zeichner & Ndimande, 2008). Add to this that the contexts and cultural traditions of teaching and teacher education provide little opportunity for important teacher education reform initiatives and ideas to be realized (Feiman-Nemser & Floden, 1986; Little, 1990a, 1990b). Consequently, only an insightful and comprehensive understanding of these competing expectations, foci, and approaches to teacher education reform will have utility in informing future policy making and program development. The research community in teaching and teacher education must accept its notable and irreplaceable role in helping to develop such an understanding through an empirical base focused on the processes and outcomes of reform. In this issue of the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE), eight articles address reform and its complexities in the area of teacher education. In this editorial, we first highlight important arguments and findings that emerge from each article. Next, we challenge some of the authors' ideas with support from existing literature and suggest what further conceptual and empirical work is needed to understand dynamic and complex teacher education reform and its contexts. Reform With Competing Expectations for Learning Outcomes and Teaching Underlying various teacher education reforms are two related and seemingly irrefutable assumptions (Delandshere & Petrosky, 2004). First, the quality of teaching is the most important factor that influences student learning. Second, teacher education plays an important role in shaping quality teaching. However, these assumptions sometimes become conceptually ambiguous when used to guide the development of teacher education reform policy and programs. Theoretically speaking, student learning and quality teaching can be defined differently, depending on how one views society and education. Varying definitions imply a range of foci for teacher education reform. Following are three popular conceptions of student learning and teaching quality, as well as their respective foci for teacher education reform, which have made their way into various teacher education reform documents. …

In the first issue of Volume 63, we focused our editorial on the need to improve research in teacher education by increasing the rigor and relevance of studies in the field. We referred to individual studies as in a structure that would serve as a knowledge base for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers (Knight, Lloyd, Arbaugh, Edmondson, Nolan, & Whitney, 2012). As researchers, we need to attend to both the quality of individual bricks and the positioning of those bricks within the framework. In other words, by situating our findings within the theoretical frameworks and prior research that undergird the knowledge base, we can advance the field. Research submitted to Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) is steadily improving. Although much of our own evidence as editors of JTE is anecdotal, coming from the hundreds of articles we encounter each year, evidence for improvement is emerging from other sources as well. Our acceptance rate has steadily increased while we have maintained the same high standards for publication. Although not the sole indicator of quality, the change in the impact of the journal may also signal a perceived increase in quality by readers of the journal. In a previous editorial (JTE 63:1), we cited our rank of 18 out of 177 education and education research journals and an impact factor of 1.891 as evidence of our standing in the field. Since that time, thanks to the efforts of previous editors and what we see as the improvement of research in teacher education leading to more citations, JTE has moved to number 10 of 203 journals and has increased the impact factor to 2.292 (Thompson Reuters, 2012). Nevertheless, we still have more to do. As editors, we spend a great deal of time articulating what makes some manuscripts publishable and others not. Manuscripts are often subjected to editorial team review prior to being sent out for peer scrutiny and always before their final acceptance. As we discuss the characteristics of various manuscripts, the complexity of defining research quality in a field with such diverse methods and topics becomes apparent. Others have explored the topic for education research in general (see, for example, National Research Council, 2002). However, as we continue this discussion, we find we are slowly acquiring a set of criteria which can be applied to diverse studies specifically in teacher education. Although these criteria are still emerging, we would like to expand the discussion to the JTE readership by sharing our thoughts on some of the criteria we have formulated to date. Criteria for Quality In judging manuscripts, we consider a number of questions related to criteria for quality. Some questions are dictated by criteria for appropriateness for JTE, but others revolve around more generic issues of quality. As editors of a journal with such a diverse readership, we find that to make the range of studies and topics accessible to proponents of different philosophies, research paradigms, and interests, authors need to be very explicit in their rationale and report of the research and how they have incorporated the criteria for quality in their studies. The following questions may help guide authors in this process. Appropriateness for JTE The first question we ask of any manuscript that comes across our desk is whether the study actually focuses on teacher education, and if so, would it be of interest to readers of the journal. Is the manuscript appropriate for JTE? Two types of manuscripts typically receive a negative response to this question. Studies that focus on teaching or teachers or students in elementary and secondary schools, without making an explicit connection to teacher education, constitute the first category. Merely mentioning the applicability of the findings for teacher education in the implications is not enough. The connection to teacher education should appear in the theoretical framework and the rationale for the study, as well as in the discussion and implications. …

The Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) was developed in response to a California State mandate (SB 2042), requiring teacher preparation programs to use performance assessments as one measure in making credentialing decisions. In this article, results are examined from statewide implementation of the PACT assessments during the first 2 pilot years. Despite the limitation of only 2 years of data, 3 years of implementation experiences have informed participating programs about how they can better support candidate learning and identify areas for examination. In addition, this research suggests that the PACT performance assessment can be used in teacher education as a valid measure of individual teacher competence for the purpose of teacher licensure and as a powerful tool for teacher learning and program improvement.

The reports of several national commissions, like the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF, 1996 ) and the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century (NCMST, 2000 ), have urged higher education institutions to reevaluate traditional practices in teacher education and transform or develop new teacher preparation programs to remedy the major problems identified in these reports. Among these issues are the following: Lack of coherence within the teacher preparation programs, fostered by the paucity of communication among subject-matter faculty, education faculty, and experienced teachers in the secondary-school setting; Absence of connection and congruence between educational theory that is advocated (e.g., teaching for understanding) and the teaching that is practiced in the subject matter and pedagogy courses and in the majority of secondary science classrooms; Deficient subject matter preparation of teachers; and Inadequate and unfocused nature of school-based experiences for prospective teachers. Recent calls for reform of the traditional practices in teacher education have also stressed the need for subject-area colleges to become more accountable for the quality and the quantity of our nation's teaching workforce (Riley, 1998 ; National Research Council [NRC], 1999 , 2000 ). In this regard, the University of Arizona has a tradition of subject-area colleges taking primary roles in secondary-level teacher preparation. The College of Fine Arts and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences have well-established programs for undergraduate teacher preparation, run by faculty members with appointments in their respective colleges rather than the College of Education (CoE). In the fall of 1999, the University of Arizona took a decisive step to continue its redistribution of responsibility for secondary-level teacher preparation by developing a science teacher preparation program housed entirely in the College of Science (CoS). The new CoS Teacher Preparation Program (TPP) was specifically developed and implemented to recruit and prepare undergraduate science majors to become secondary-level science teachers. The remaining sections of this essay describe 1) the development and evolution of the new CoS-based program, 2) describe the design of the program in response to the reform issues highlighted in the Introduction, and 3) comment on resources and academic issues related to the new program.

ost of the urban teacher education programs that existed during the past thirty-five years are now defunct. Even those considered very successful-such as the Urban Teacher Corps, the Cooperative Urban Teacher Education (CUTE) programs of the Mid-Continent Regional Education Lab, Indiana University's Urban Project, and the West Dallas Teacher Education Program at the University of North Texas-no longer exist. Because of the demise of urban teacher training programs, current teacher education programs must serve as a preparation for urban teachers. However, according to the Association of Teacher Educators, generic programs are inadequate as a preparation for urban teachers (Buttery, Haberman, and Houston 1990). Martin Haberman (1987), who has researched and written extensively on the preparation of teachers for urban schools and effective urban teaching, considers them (traditional, campus-based teacher education programs) a waste of time. According to Haberman (1987), the average career of an urban teacher is between three and five years, and in every five-year period approximately one-half of the urban teaching force leaves the profession. As a result, there is a teacher shortage in the nation's 120 largest urban school districts (Haberman 1987). The lack of specific urban teacher education programs and the inadequacy of current teacher education programs as a preparation for urban teachers have contributed to the high rate of urban teacher attrition. Because of an urban teacher shortage, many newly certified teachers, who want to teach immediately after becoming licensed, will begin their careers in large, inner-city schools. Many of those novice teachers, who lack adequate urban teacher preparation, may be overwhelmed by the problems associated with urban teaching. The problems they will face, such as students' antagonism toward school, their lack of respect for themselves and their teachers, poor student discipline, high rates of student absenteeism, stu-

Promoting teacher quality is fundamental to improving student achievement; therefore, managing quality in teacher education programmes has become critical to improving student outcomes (Chong and Ho in Int J Manage Educ 3:302–314, 2009; Cochran-Smith in Teach Educ 17:527–546, 2000; Darling-Hammond in J Teach Educ 51(3):166–173, 2000; Journal of Teacher Education 57:120–138, 2006; OECD in Teachers matters: Attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers. OECD Publications, Paris, 2005). Meeting the demand for high-quality teachers means ensuring quality in teacher education. There is now robust evidence to demonstrate that quality in teacher preparation directly impacts the quality of student outcomes.

One of the most persistent themes in the history of teacher education has been sharp public criticism coupled with ardent demands for improvement and change. Despite many reform initiatives over the years, however, it has been widely perceived that teacher education has been almost impervious to genuine reform (Fullan, 1998; Goodlad, 1990), failing to keep pace with the conditions of a changing society even when they threatened its very existence (Imig & Switzer, 1996). Perhaps it is the combination of a perceived historical failure to change coupled with the unprecedented intensity of current public attention that have prompted so many recent initiatives by prestigious national organizations and foundations that are related to teaching and teacher education, teachers' qualifications, and teacher quality. Although what follows is not a comprehensive list, the remainder of this editorial provides a brief description of some of the most visible current initiatives and reports that are directly related to teacher education; those recently completed are listed first, followed by those currently under way. Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy Research Report on Preparation. Suzanne Wilson, Robert Floden, and Joan Ferrini-Mundy (MSU) authored CTP's recent report, Teacher Preparation Research: Current Knowledge, Gaps, and Recommendations, for the U.S. Department of Education/OERI. The authors examined more than 300 peer-reviewed research reports about subject matter preparation, pedagogical preparation, clinical training, policies for improving teacher education, and alternative certification. Drawing on the 57 studies that met rigorous criteria, the report concludes that the empirical research base for teacher education is thin. It recommends a new generation of research that looks across institutions, examines specific parts of teachers' preparation, and has stronger research designs. Executive summary and full report are available at: http://www.ctpweb.org. Committee on Assessment and Quality Report. The National Research Council's Committee on Assessment and Quality recently issued Candidates: The Role of Licensure Tests in Improving Quality, edited by Karen Mitchell, David Robinson, Barbara Plake, and Kale Knolls. Chaired by David Robinson, the 19-member committee was impaneled by the National Academy of Sciences at the request of the U.S. DOE to examine the appropriateness and technical quality of teacher licensure tests and the merits of such tests for holding states and higher education institutions accountable for the quality of teacher education. The report concludes that initial teacher licensure tests fall short of the intended policy goals for their use as accountability tools and as levers for improving teacher preparation and licensing programs. Complete report is available at http://www. nap.edu. Educational Testing Service's Studies of Quality and Education. ETS' work on teacher quality and teacher education is not a single initiative but an emphasis in several of their centers. Along these lines, Harold Wenglinsky's study linking students' achievement in math and science with teacher qualifications, professional development and classroom practices, concludes that classroom practices matter most. His study on teaching teachers explores the links among the characteristics of teacher education institutions, their programs, and teacher effectiveness as measured by scores on licensure exams. Drew Gitomer, Andrew Latham and Robert Ziomek's study on the academic quality of prospective teachers concludes that prospective teachers' academic ability varies widely by type of licensure sought. For information on these and other ETS studies, consult: http://www.ets.org.research/. AERA Consensus Panel on Education. The AERA Consensus Panel is an 18-month initiative intended to provide a synthesis of existing empirical and conceptual research related to the preparation of new teachers. …

School Reform: The District Policy Implications of the Effective Schools Literature

Using the critical race theory methodology of counter-storytelling, the authors provide narratives of their experiences as teacher educators to consider why and how the racial power of Whiteness continues to derail teaching and learning for social justice in US teacher preparation programs, despite the democratic intentions, hard work and good will of many teacher educators. Contending that Whiteness serves as a hidden referent structuring interactions and activity within US teacher preparation programs, the authors draw on their narratives to highlight and analyze moments in time when teacher educators actively and fully participate in and enact the obstruction of social-justice-oriented educational endeavors, thus ensuring that future teachers will not be prepared to teach all students. The authors argue that for social justice to be realized in education, the racial power of Whiteness must be interrupted. Since individuals choose, whether consciously or not, to help recreate Whiteness as the normative standard in US teacher education programs, the authors posit that teacher educators and others can also choose differently; they can choose to act ways that challenge the historical privileging of White interests, values, and beliefs.

Unprecedented and long-overdue attention has recently been given to the role of field-based clinical experiences in teacher preparation. Traditional models of university coursework disconnected from real world field-based clinical experiences serve neither prospective teachers nor PreK-12 students. This chapter presents a broader notion of field-based teacher preparation structures occurring in school-university partnership contexts and professional development schools, with the authors drawing from data of four field-based experiences, which fall along a continuum of partnership, from three teacher education programs at two universities. These partnerships illustrate a developmental framework for building mutually beneficial relationships that enhance the engagement of all stakeholders and acknowledge the need for differentiation in teacher education practice. A pathways orientation to school-university partnerships/PDSs and a project-based clinical approach offer chances to develop mutually beneficial learning opportunities for PreK-12 students and teacher candidates.

The rapid emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transformed educational ecosystems, challenged traditional models of teacher education, and demanded new frameworks for pedagogical innovation. This conceptual–theoretical study proposes a Pedagogical AI Literacy Framework designed to guide the responsible and human-centered integration of AI in teacher preparation. The study addresses the following guiding research question: How can teacher education programs integrate AI literacy in pedagogically sound and ethically responsible ways? Drawing on evidence from recent case studies, including institutional models of ethical AI disclosure (Kalaidos University of Applied Sciences), preservice teacher reflections on generative AI use in Turkey, and AI-assisted learning platforms in Chinese schools, this study demonstrates how AI literacy encompasses technical proficiency, ethical discernment, and reflective practice. These cases illustrate that effective teacher education must engage candidates in modeling ethical AI use, critically evaluating algorithmic bias, and designing AI-enhanced instructional activities. Exemplar pedagogical scenarios, such as AI-assisted lesson planning, prompt-based inquiry tasks, and critical verification of AI-generated bibliographies, reveal how AI tools can promote higher-order thinking and professional judgment when guided by sound pedagogical principles. The framework contributes to contemporary debates on the ethical and pedagogical implications of AI by positioning educators as” humans in the loop” agents of moral and instructional mediation in technology-rich contexts. It further argues that responsible AI integration requires alignment across three interrelated dimensions: pedagogical design, ethical governance and institutional policy. Ultimately, this study provides a conceptual foundation for advancing teacher education to empower future educators to navigate, evaluate, and shape AI technologies in ways that uphold integrity, inclusivity, and human agency.

This article explores the praxis of critical education theory among teacher educators in Thailand’s contemporary education reform movement. Using qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews and classroom observations with fifteen teacher educators from ten institutions, the research examines how critical pedagogy is implemented in teacher preparation programs. Four key themes emerged from the data analysis: 1) reconceptualizing “teacher” and “teacherness,” 2) knowledge production and discourse formation, 3) professional development and critical reflection, and 4) contestation, negotiation, and cooperation in implementing critical approaches. Findings reveal that teacher educators are actively challenging traditional pedagogical paradigms, fostering critical consciousness among pre-service teachers, and navigating institutional constraints to promote more inclusive and socially relevant curricula. The study highlights the complex dynamics of implementing critical education theory within a system that often resists change. This research contributes to the understanding of how critical pedagogy can be operationalized in teacher education, offering insights into the challenges and opportunities of fostering a more equitable and transformative education system in Thailand. The findings have implications for teacher education policy and practice, suggesting the need for a more flexible and critically oriented approach to teacher preparation.

Summative performance assessments in teacher education, such as the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) and the edTPA, have been heralded through polices intended to enhance the quality of the teaching profession and raise its stature among other professions. However, the development and implementation of the PACT, and subsequently the edTPA, have not been without controversy and debate. The purpose of this article is to assess the implementation, impact, and evolution of the PACT and edTPA. To do so, we review the growing body of literature on the impact and implementation of the PACT and critically analyze the state policies surrounding the edTPA. We raise questions about the practical and policy implications of the PACT’s evolution, as a statewide assessment, to the edTPA, a nationally available assessment.