Markets, Standards, Teaching, and Teacher Education

Market-based approaches to teacher education are growing internationally. There are concomitant moves to create uniformity and a system of more centralized authority over what counts as important teacher skills and knowledge. These kinds of reforms are overtly meant to help. Each is closely connected to the larger arena of education, where momentous ideological transformations are underway. The possible hidden effects of these efforts can be understood only if we look both inside teacher education programs and to the larger social field of power on which they operate. The author argues that the conscious originating motives for both market-oriented and uniform standards approaches to improve the quality of teacher education may not guarantee the effects of such policies in the real world of real schools. Such reforms may have quite dangerous consequences unless we situate our efforts within an honest analysis of what is happening in education in general right now.