The Adequacies and Inadequacies of Three Current Strategies to Recruit, Prepare, and Retain the Best Teachers for All Students1

This paper analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of three of the major approaches to teacher education reform in the United States: the professionalization agenda, the deregulation agenda, and the social justice agenda. Although each of these approaches to reform has contributed in positive ways to improving teacher education in a manner that would lessen the achievement gap in U.S. public schools, they each have certain weaknesses that undermine this goal. There are also important issues of inequality in U.S. society that are not addressed by any of the reform agendas.