Our inability to establish clear indicators of the success of teacher education programs is
rooted in the normal school and teachers’ college foundations of these programs. Although most
preservice programs now reside in university settings with expectations for research as well as
teaching, the move into universities has reinforced an epistemology of technical rationality that
largely ignores learning from experience (Schön, 1983, 1995). Similarly, the accumulation of a
massive “knowledge base for teaching” has been a major research achievement that falls short of
its goal when such knowledge is taught to would-be teachers as content rather than constructed
from their practicum experiences. Generating standards of practice and introducing teacher
testing are viewed here as moves to impose externa l requirements on programs that must first be
transformed from within. The discussion of indicators of success is organized in four major
sections, beginning with the quality of teacher education programs. Subsequent sections
consider external and internal factors influencing teacher educators, the relationship of
qualifications and professional development to student achievement, and the impact of out-offield
teaching on student learning.