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Who Should be Accountable for What Beginning Teachers Need to Know?

Who should be accountable for what beginning teachers need to know? This article first explains and illustrates three sets of knowledge and skills beginning teachers should have acquired in their preparation programs: academic knowledge needed for teaching the field of their license, generic professional knowledge and skills needed for teaching any subject, and license-specific professional knowledge and skills needed for teaching the field of their license. The article then argues that the wrong faculty is held accountable for the most important things beginning teachers of core subjects from Grade 5 to 12 need to acquire—deep knowledge of the subject they teach and a beginning understanding of how to teach it—and that their preparation programs are approved by agencies with no valid basis for making judgments of these crucial details. It concludes with suggestions for restructuring teacher preparation and assigning accountability where it belongs.

Key Words: accountability for teacher preparation • teachers’ academic qualifications • teachers’ pedagogical knowledge • teacher education reform

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