Statewide Plans for Student Teaching; One Step Further.

Overview & Synopsis

Teacher education is a stepchild--unwanted by colleges, permissively accepted by schools, allowed in any and all forms by state departments of education, tolerated by the profession. Attempts to reform teacher education have failed to recognize that the social institutions in which teacher education is embedded (schools, colleges, and state departments of education) were created by society to preserve the status quo rather than to bring about change and innovation. Therefore, a new organizational structure for professional education, the Educational Professions Institute (EPI), is proposed. Leadership for EPIs would be provided by separate units in state departments of education. Nevertheless, EPIs would be separate agencies of higher education with distinct, unique, and differentiated functions. Drawing their faculty from colleges, schools, and communities in which they were located, they would be largely postgraduate institutions, although they might admit students at any point in their college careers when they were deemed ready to begin a semester of professional education. As prestige agencies, EPIs would pay higher salaries than traditional colleges, universities, and school systems. They would train both teachers and teachers of teachers, and their research activities would focus on the teaching-learning process. (Author/SG)