Abstract
Teacher preparation evaluation has expanded rapidly since 1998, pushed by “failing” rhetoric adopted by many educational leaders, such as Michelle Rhee, founder of the Students First organization. Led by the ideas and arguments put forth by Diane Ravitch, others think that there is too much focus on red herrings and that there are, in fact, problems with the educational system, but not the ones with which decision and policy makers have become enamored. Despite this dichotomy, the former group is prevailing, giving the American education system a narrative of inadequacy and failure, and making the idea of data driven evaluation, at all levels, the answer to “fixing” American education.
Between the two sides the voices of teachers have either been absent, or deemphasized when used, despite being the people on the front line of the “crisis”. The goal of this research was to gather the opinions of teachers about how effective they felt their college programs were in training them to become the teacher they wanted to be. The goal was not to re-diagnose a particular problem from a different point of view, or offer solutions to perceived issues, but instead to bring some attention to a set of voices that has been consistently overlooked by mainstream media, college program evaluations, and much of the academic literature.
Recommended Citation
Ashley, J. (2016). Teachers’ Opinions on Teacher Preparation: A Gap between College and Classroom. Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education, 7 (1). Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/jiae/vol7/iss1/4
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