What Counts as a Good Job in Teaching? : Becoming a Teacher as We Race to the Top

Teacher educators are now grappling with the issue of balance between helping candidates learn how to be effective teachers and preparing them to successfully complete a variety of high-stakes assessments. It is concerning when there are conversations at professional meetings about course syllabi and even entire programs being organized around a set of rubrics for a particular evaluation scheme. It is crucial to prepare our teacher candidates to be effective in a constantly-changing professional life, and not simply to treat any particular rubric as if it were a script.