Educating Pre-Service Teachers: A State of Affairs

Summary: In What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future, the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future analyzed schools and reported major flaws in the ways that teachers prepare. He enforced the quality of teachers. The commission made two recommendations to improve student learning. The commission first called for “renewing the national promise to bringing every American child up to world class standards in core academic areas.” Second, the commission recommended, “developing and enforcing rigorous standards for teacher preparation, initial licensing, and continuing development. INTASC has been most influential in the development of state and local teacher-education standards. These standards are intended to serve as a framework to guide reform in schools of education. INTASC, like many others are performance based standards, meaning they describe what teachers should know, be like, and be able to do.

Position: I totally agree with the author. These guidelines or standards are needed to ensure teaching at a higher performance level. Teachers should understand that they are being held accountable for the advancement of their students. The INTASC standards should also serve as a way for teachers to make sure that they are doing everything possible to educate their children. The best thing is that the standards provide a framework for teachers and administrators. At my institution of higher learning we have completed a lot of assignments where we were asked to align the INTASC standards with our lesson plans. This allows us as preservice teachers to fully comprehend the importance of having each one developed in the plan. We are also able to see what we have incorporated and what we could include for further references or examples.