The preparation of highly qualified teachers is one of the most important factors when considering the education of our children. Teacher preparation programs are largely responsible for teacher training and are therefore in a key position to lead the profession to ensure teachers are equipped with the best, most relevant and effective theory, practices, and strategies. In this chapter, it is argued that we are at an important juncture in the training of future teachers. As such, the chapter presents several areas that a reimagined teacher preparation program should focus on. It explores the important roles in teacher licensure, focuses on teaching for diversity, explores new recruitment and retention practices for teachers and changes needed in curriculum as well as how all of these can have a positive impact future of teacher education programs.
TopIntroduction
There is a long and complicated history of how the United States colleges and universities have trained K-12 public school teachers. The earliest “teacher preparation” schools date back to the early 1800s where education leaders such as Horace Mann assisted in the creation of normal schools. These schools trained aspiring teachers with the necessary skills and content needed in the classroom. The creation of these public schools initiated a major shift in how society looked at teaching. As David Labaree (2021) explains, during this time “teaching became a kind of public trust, which called for systematic training and professional certification for teachers in order to ensure that they were capable of meeting their new public responsibility for educating the nation’s children” (para. 8). This responsibility continued as the demand for teachers grew and in the early 1900s these schools transitioned into teachers’ colleges and later into state colleges. Training public school teachers became one of the main responsibilities of at least one state college or university in virtually every state in the nation.
Institutional and societal factors in the 20th century led the teaching profession to consist of mostly White females who were traditionally undercompensated. Since teaching was historically viewed as a “woman’s job,” the profession was restocked with new teachers as the limits on employment shepherded many women into the classrooms, thus traditionally meeting demand (Weiler, 1989). Because of the woman’s rights movements, additional employment opportunities and higher paying jobs led many women into other professions, but teacher demand did not become an observable problem until the early 2000s as a confluence of factors left many districts looking for qualified teachers (Darling-Hammond & Berry, 1999; Podolsky et al., 2016). The increased qualifications for teachers, the implementation of high stakes testing, and the continued “status problem,” are all factors which have negatively influenced the recruitment of teachers, and this has been compounded by the inability to retain well-qualified teachers, thus leading to teacher shortages (Garcia & Weiss, 2019).
At the time of this writing in early 2023, several additional factors have made the teaching profession a dubious career choice for many. One key factor has been the increasing cost of becoming a teacher, especially given the current salaries that teachers receive in comparison to other similarly educated workers. The cost of a college education has been on the rise for a few decades with Forbes Magazine reporting that over the past 40 years, there has been a 180% increase in the cost of a four-year college (McGurran & Hahn, 2022). In addition, many states require teachers to have completed a Master’s degree before they can apply for a teaching position. Thus, it is hypothesized that potential teachers are leaving the pipeline for more lucrative careers (Eggers & Calegari, 2011; Flannery, 2021).