Accountability in Teacher Education

What constitutes accountability in teacher education? This article reviews research on elements of teacher preparation program quality and argues that professional standards can leverage greater quality if they are incorporated into professional policies governing accreditation and licensure that encourage schools of education to adopt the practices that will enable success. These include teacher assessment strategies –such as standards-based performance assessments that have been found not only to measure features of teaching associated with effectiveness, but actually to help develop effectiveness at the same time; performance-based accreditation strategies – including evidence about their preparation from candidates themselves through surveys that reveal their experiences in preparation; and investments in the professional development school partnerships that will enable teacher education to firmly connect theory and practice in powerful ways, much as the teaching hospital has done for medicine. The other aspect of accountability is ensuring that all candidates get access to this quality of preparation. To accomplish this, policies aimed at teacher education accountability need to include effective incentives for recruiting, retaining, and distributing teachers to the places where they are needed.