A confluence of several trends provides both the opportunity and the need to examine and improve teacher preparation in schools of education.  Important trends include the following.

First, about 30 percent of elementary, middle, and high schools in North Carolina have performance composite scores of only 70%, as determined from a random sample of 200 schools in different counties from the ABCs of Public Education Report 2000, Vol. 1 of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.  Students not proficient in reading, mathematics, and reasoning in elementary school are unlikely to master more advanced subjects in middle schools and high schools that require skill at reading, math, and reasoning.  Some part of the discrepancy between what is possible (nearly 100 percent proficiency in reading and math by the end of elementary school) and what is achieved may be attributed to schools of education not adequately preparing new teachers (Ingersoll, 1999; National Center for Educational Statistics, 1999).
        Second, the North Carolina ABC accountability model, and the mission of the State Legislature and Department of Public Instruction (to raise achievement generally and to close the minority/nonminority achievement gap), oblige public schools to ensure students' achievement in essential skills (reading, math, reasoning, classroom participation) as early as possible.  This, again, means that schools of education must prepare new teachers to teach skillfully from the moment  they have their own classes.  Otherwise, valuable and irreplaceable time is lost.
         Third, there are many recent scholarly critiques of education generally and schools of education in particular.  Examples include the work of Bestor (Education wastelands), Chall (The academic  achievement challenge), Hirsch (The schools we need and why we don't have them), Johnson & Immerwahr (First things first), Kramer (Ed school follies), Mitchell (The graves of academe), Ravitch (Left back: A century of failed  school reform), Stone ("Teacher Training and Pedagogical Methods"), Sykes (Dumbing down our kids), and Stotsky (Losing our language).  Common criticisms are that:

1. Education school curricula are neither generated by nor justified by research bases on effective curricula and methods of instruction, as found in the work of Anderson, Reder, & Simon, 1998;  Brophy & Good, 1986; Catania, 1998; Ellis, Worthington, & Larkin, 1994; Rosenshine, 1986; Rosenshine & Stevens, 1986.

2. Education school curricula are not sufficiently aimed at meeting the public's expectations that schools teach children to master traditional subjects, such as reading, math, science, and history (Farkas, Johnson, & Duffett, 1997; Stone, 2000b).

3. Education schools do not adequately prepare new teachers to develop and conduct logically coherent and effective lessons, to manage the flow of activities and materials in class, and to monitor students' learning (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1999; Stone, 2000a).

Instead,

1. Schools of education are oriented around a broad set of sentiments and dispositions called "progressive" and "learner centered" (Stone, 1996).

2. Schools of education respond predictably and favorably to each wave of untested but fashionable "innovations" and  fads, and provide new teachers with "philosophies," curricula (e.g., in reading and math), and teaching methods that turn out to be flawed and eventually are dropped.

Indeed, this state of affairs is recognized in North Carolina Statute 115C-81.2.  Comprehensive Plan for Reading Achievement, which reads,

(a)  The State Board of Education shall develop a comprehensive plan to improve reading achievement in the public schools...The plan shall be based on reading  instructional practices for which there is strong evidence of effectiveness inexisting empirical scientific research studies on reading development...The  plan shall...include revision of the standard course of study, revision of teacher certification standards, and revision of teacher education program standards.

(c)  In order to reflect changes to the standard course of study and to emphasize  balanced, integrated, and effective programs of reading instruction that  include early and systematic phonics instruction, the State Board of  Education,  in collaboration with the Board of Governors of The University of  North Carolina and with the North Carolina Association of Independent  Colleges and Universities, shall review, evaluate, and revise current teachercertification standards and teacher education programs within the institutions  of higher education that provide coursework in reading instruction.

From a sociological perspective, the above trends suggest more than a discrepancy between what schools of education are expected to do (and can do), and what they appear to do.  The discrepancy suggests a crisis of legitimacy for schools of education, further evidence for which is: (1) streamlined programs for teacher licensure (such as NC Teach); (2) proposals for charter schools of education; and (3) the beginnings of state evaluations of schools of education similar to evaluations of public schools under the ABC's.  In summary, schools of education must improve their programs (and hence the performance of their graduates), both for the good of North Carolina's children and (in all likelihood) for the survival of schools of education.

The guidelines and suggestions in this section have three things in common:  (1) they are derived from extensive research literatures on effective curricula and forms of instruction; (2) they are feasible; and (3) they would simplify teacher preparation programs.

Guideline 1.  Education students must know logic.
        In particular, students must know the rules and strategies for defining concepts, for extracting generalizations from texts, for identifying fallacies of relevance, and for valid and invalid deductive and inductive reasoning.  These skills will:

1.  Enable students to evaluate critically what they hear and read, and judge the adequacy of claims in favor of or against curricula and forms of instruction.

2.  Enable students to understand the logic behind curriculum and instructional design, so that students can explain how curricula work and why some do not work, can alter curricula in light of their students' needs, and can create units of instruction that involve a logical progression of instructional tasks.  There is much talk (important talk) in schools of education about critical thinking and about teachers being reflective practitioners.  Unless education school students receive focused instruction on logic, discussion of critical thinking and reflective practice is vain.

Suggestions Flowing from Guideline 1.

1. A prerequisite for admission to schools of education ought to be at least one course in elementary logic.

2. What students learn in a course on elementary logic should be applied in other education courses, as suggested below.

3. Schools of education should offer and require all students to take a course on research methods the first or second semester—when they are taking their introduction to education course.

4. The introduction to education course should use principles of elementary logic to examine literature that is alleged to support a variety of current "innovations" and "best practices" (e.g., small class size).  Generalizing from the research methods course, students should be taught to examine critically the evidence supporting educational practices and to determine the risks in relation to the potential advantages in all other education courses; e.g., math and reading methods.

Guideline 2.  Empirical Research Must Be the Alpha and Omega of Any Teacher Preparation Program.
         The level of scholarship in schools of education is generally and historically considered to be near the bottom of the various university disciplines.  This has little to do with the native abilities of faculty and students, and virtually everything to do with what is considered an appropriate warrant for accepting or rejecting educational: (1) propositions (e.g., the common assertion that "Homogeneous ability grouping is bad for children."); (2) shibboleths ("Drill and kill"), (3) philosophies and value orientations (whole language, "child-directed instruction"), (4) curricula (e.g., math curricula that de-emphasize mastery of fundamental strategies and operations), and (5) methods (e.g., invented spelling).
        The warrant in education schools for accepting or rejecting educational ideas, value orientations, curricula, and methods (which are taught to education students) is not the same warrant found in other disciplines (such as medicine, business, and engineering) where (as in education) errors have serious consequences for other persons.  That warrant, in other disciplines, requires a rigorous examination of objective (i.e.,  readily confirmable) evidence collected in many settings over an extended period of time; i.e., generally comparative, longitudinal, replicated, experimental research.
        In contrast, the warrant for including a proposition, curriculum, value orientation, or method in education is more often some combination of intuitive appeal; evocative words ("child centered," "experiential," "progressive"); consistency with existing (not necessarily tested) beliefs; or the weight of majority opinion.  For example, the whole language approach to reading is supported not by rigorous experimental research but by such terms as "literature rich," "meaningful," "authentic,"  and "holistic"—terms whose meanings are themselves rarely examined.  However, evaluation research on whole language as a whole (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1996) and on whole language's "embedded" or "implicit" (rather than focused) methods for teaching decoding (Foorman et al., 1998; Lyon, 1997), shows clearly that whole language does not work with at least one-third of students, and does not work as well generally as explicit instruction (National Reading Panel, 2000).  Yet, this research appears to have little effect on schools of education, where for the most part whole language remains the predominant approach to reading instruction.
        More fundamental than the importance of being guided by research is the question of what constitutes reasonable research and empirical support.  Professors in schools of education generally say they are guided by research.  Nonetheless, schools of education will never be recognized by other disciplines (or by the public?) as having the same level of intellectuality, or as operating in good faith as moral agents responsible for other people's children, until "research" means controlled, validated, replicated, comparative research—complemented by qualitative research, but never replaced by it.

Suggestions Flowing from Guideline 2.

1. Schools of education should be required to have a library of research bases (journal articles and literature reviews) on every major approach, curriculum, and instructional method that they teach to education students—portfolio assessment, ability grouping, whole language, constructivist approaches to mathematics and science instruction, cooperative learning.  These research basis should be available to all students, and they should be used in relevant classes as a major part of what is taught (e.g., courses on mathematics methods should discuss the research base on effective mathematics instruction).  These research bases are readily available on the internet and in some cases could (and should) replace textbooks that merely summarize some of the research.  Internet resources include
 http://www.uncwil.edu/people/kozloffm/reading.html  in reading, and
 http://idea.uoregon.edu/~ncite/documents/math/math.html in mathematics.

2. The research bases in schools of education should be scrutinized by state level teams whose membership includes representatives from disciplines that are guided by experimental research.  The claim by many educators that their subject matter is different from the "hard sciences" and therefore should not be held to the same standards must not be honored.  Sociology, economics, and psychology have the same subject matter as education (i.e., human interaction and development), yet these fields manage to conduct large-scale comparative quantitative (i.e., rigorous) research.

3. Identified deficiencies in a school of education's research base (e.g., too few studies to justify an approach that is taught, a research base consisting primarily of nonexperimental research, a research base and course syllabi that are biased in favor of one approach) should carry a mandate that the school of education improve its research base in specific ways within a specified time.

Guideline 3.  Depth Over Breadth.
         Another criticism of teacher preparation programs is that coverage is a mile wide and an inch deep.  For example, the experimental psychology of learning might be addressed for two weeks in one educational psychology course.  A reading course might address half a dozen approaches to early reading instruction (many of which, as noted above, are not supported by rigorous research), and each approach receives one class period.  In other words, teacher preparation programs violate one of the most well-founded principles of curriculum design; namely, that a person's ability to apply, adapt, retain, and independently use knowledge gained in the classroom depends on whether that knowledge was learned to the point of mastery; and mastery requires practice over an extended period in different environments.
         In contrast, superficial coverage of many topics means that: (1) the most useful and well-supported ideas and methods receive the same scant treatment as the least useful and least supported (which would leave students confused); and (2) virtually nothing is learned well enough to apply it skillfully as a classroom teacher.

Suggestions Flowing From Guideline 3.

1. Teacher preparation programs should focus on fewer topics, and these topics should be addressed again and again as students move through the program.

2. The universe of typical education topics should be listed and items should be ranked by priority, as determined by research identifying factors that most strongly affect  student achievement; e.g., Brophy & Good, 1986; Ellis et al., 1994; Walberg, 1990). The highest priority should be given to topics that are the most general (i.e,, should form a large part of teachers' repertoires of knowledge and skills) and that have the strongest effect on student achievement.  Therefore, the highest priority and the core of teacher preparation programs should be: (1) features of well-designed curricula and well-designed instruction (how to create, deliver, and evaluate); (2) specific curricula and methods for teaching reading, math, and reasoning; (3) principles of learning; (4) child development; and (5) classroom management.  A teacher preparation program that focuses on these few (but highly general) topics will turn out new teachers who are skilled at teaching.  Other topics (social justice, saving the environment) must be seen as secondary to the primary mission of teacher preparation programs.  Indeed, it may well be that the mission of social justice is best served when new teachers are skilled first at educating all children.

3.  These five topics would be strands of the teacher preparation program.  Early courses in the education program would involve in-depth examinations of each topic using original writings and literature reviews.  For example, an education psychology course would have students read Piaget and Skinner, and not merely a few paragraphs about them.  Later courses (e.g., instructional design, reading methods) would have students read more focused literature (as much as possible, original work, not superficial textbooks) and would apply knowledge to course-related topics (e.g., designing reading instruction).  This cumulative development and application of knowledge would strategically integrate earlier knowledge across strands and would provide needed distributed practice.

4. Course requirements must involve extensive and high-level writing projects.  Few education school graduates know how to do an adequate literature review.  They must confront and be required to answer serious questions of the sort that bear upon the fundamental issues in the five core strands. This is examined in the next section.

Guideline 4.  Rigorous Evaluation.
         Some critics have argued that there is insufficient quality control in teacher preparation programs. They point to new graduates who do not know how to teach and to manage classrooms, and they suggest that course grades, evaluations from field-internship supervisors, and licensure examinations (such as the Praxis II) are not valid indicators of classroom teaching skill (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1999; Stone, 2000a).  Therefore, it is reasonable to suggest that state efforts to improve schools of education include rigorous evaluations of what students know and know how to do.

Suggestions Flowing From Guideline 4.

An examination of sample questions from the Praxis II examination reveals that: (1) a person with superficial exposure to education courses and a little common sense could answer many questions (e.g., which item on Maslow's hierarchy of needs best applies to a starving child); and (2) many questions appear to tap the depth of student indoctrination in current educational fads and fashions (the opposite of critical thinking).  Frankly, the Praxis II is embarrassing, especially when compared to the sort of examination taken by engineering and accounting students seeking licensure.  It is reasonable to suggest that the state should create an examination reflecting the core knowledge that any teacher must possess; e.g., in the five core strand areas noted above.  Instead of Praxis II questions about when feathers and stones would hit bottom in a vacuum (a question more properly asked of a child in grade three), the state licensing examination would ask serious questions such as the following.

a. Identify the phases of learning.  What are the behavior changes that define each  phase?  [An adequate answer would address acquisition, fluency, generalization, endurance, adaptation, retention, and independence.]

b. What are the differences between initial vs. expanded instruction? [An adequate answer would address the degree of teacher direction, distribution of practice, error correction, strategic integration of knowledge strands, and range of examples presented.]

c. What are the five sorts of errors, regardless of subject matter?  [An adequate answer would examine errors of fact, concepts, rules, cognitive strategies, and physical operations.]

d. What is the alogorithm for correcting strategy errors; for example, in solving a long division problem or writing a paper?  What is the alogorithm for correcting concept errors, such as distinguishing between granite and basalt?

e. Identify a strand in a course on any subject.  List the progression of tasks along the strand.  What design principles guide the progression?

f. What are the main contributions (concepts, generalizations, recommendations)  from Piaget? Discuss the limitations of his contributions.  [An adequate answer would discuss the size of his sample, the precision of his definitions, and research that both supports and refutes his propositions.]

g. What are the sorts of errors students can make reading?

h. A student (any age) makes more than 20 assorted decoding errors in a passage of 20 lines that has only one-syllable words.  The student takes more than two minutes to read this passage. List the possible skill deficits that account for this performance.  Which skill deficits indicate inadequate prior instruction?  Which skill deficits suggest inadequate ongoing instruction?

Anderson, J.R., Reder, L.M., & Simon, H.A.  (1998).  Applications and Misapplications of Cognitive Psychology to Mathematics Education. Department of Psychology.  Carnegie Mellon University. Pittsburgh, PA 15213.  Online at http://act.psy.cmu.edu/personal/ja/misapplied.html

Brophy, J.E., & Good, T.L. (1986).  Teacher behavior and student achievement.  In M.C. Wittrock (Ed.), Third handbook of research on teaching (pp. 328-375).  New York:  McMillan.

Catania, A.C. (1998). Learning. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Ellis, E.S., Worthington, L.A., & Larkin, M.J.  (1994).  Executive summary of the research synthesis on effective teaching principles and the design of quality tools for educators. University of Oregon:  National Center to Improve the Tools of Educators.

Farkas, G., Johnson, J., and Duffett, A. (1997). Different Drummers: How Teachers of Teachers View Public Education.  New York, NY: Public Agenda.

Foorman, B.R., Francis, D.J., Fletcher, J.M., Schatschneifer, C., and Mehta, P.  (1998). The role of instruction in learning to read:  Preventing reading failure in at-risk children.  Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 37-55.

Ingersoll, R. (1999).  The problem of underqualified teachers in American secondary schools.  Educational Researcher, March.

Lyon, G.R. (1997).  Statement of G. Reid Lyon, Ph.D., before the Committee on Education and the Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives. Bethesda, MD:  National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health.

National Center for Education Statistics (1996).  National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1994. Reading report card for the nation and states (Report #96045). Washington, DC:  Author.

National Center for Education Statistics (1999). Teacher quality:  A report on the preparation and qualifications of public school teachers. Washington, DC:  U.S. Department of Education, January.

National Reading Panel (2000).  Teaching children to read. Bethesda, MD:  National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health.

Rosenshine, B., & Stevens, R. (1986).  Teaching functions.  In M.C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching(Third edition) (pp. 376-391).  New York:  McMillan.

Stone, J.E. (2000a). Teacher Training and Pedagogical Methods.  Hoover Institute/Pacific Research Institute Teacher Quality Conference,  Stanford University May 12.

Stone, J. E. (2000b). Aligning teacher training with public policy. The State Education Standard, 1(1), 35-38.

Stone, J.E. (1996).  Developmentalism:  An obscure but pervasive restriction on educational improvement.  Education Policy Analysis Archives, 4, 8, April.  On-line at http://olam.ed.asu.edu/epaa/v4n8.html.

Walberg, H.J. (1990).  Productive teaching and instruction: Assessing the knowledge base.  Phi Delta Kappan, February, 470-478.