Taking Stock in 2006: Evidence, Evidence Everywhere

In her history of education research, Ellen Lagemann (2000) suggested that during the 20th century, education had a "romance with quantification" (p. ix) that was reflected in its penchant for counting, measuring, and calculating in order to resemble the hard sciences as closely as possible. In this editorial, I argue that although education has in no way broken off its love affair with quantification, its current paramour is evidence, and the affair is hot and heavy in teacher education. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that evidence--or at least talk about evidence--is now everywhere in teacher education research, policy, and practice. This editorial describes and critiques the current focus on evidence, making the argument that although it has great potential to improve teacher education, it also has troubling aspects that need to be acknowledged and debated. (1) EVIDENCE EVERYWHERE Teacher education's current preoccupation with evidence is consistent with the way the standards movement has evolved and with the trend toward evidence-based practice in education writ large. It is important to note, however, that although there have long been several lines of research related to the effects of teacher education (Cochran-Smith & Fries, 2005; Kennedy, 1999), the current intense focus on evidence in teacher education practice and policy is a significant departure from far and recent past. The major reforms of the 1980s and early 1990s, for example, demanded that teacher education be more coherent and intellectually rigorous (e.g., Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, 1986; Holmes Group, 1986), whereas reformers like John Goodlad (1990) argued that school renewal and teacher education reform should proceed simultaneously based on moral purposes. During this same time period, revised National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) accreditation standards pushed teacher education to concentrate on the professional knowledge base and be explicit about the conceptual frameworks that guided programs (Christensen, 1996). None of these reforms had much to do with evidence. Currently however, in debates about large-scale teacher education policies and in the federal and state regulations related to individual teacher preparation programs and pathways, evidence is front and center. For example, advocates of differing teacher education pathways often support their positions by citing empirical evidence that they claim demonstrates a positive relationship between particular pathways and school outcomes and conversely, reject the positions of their opponents on the grounds that the opponent's evidence is flimsy or faulty (e.g., Ballou & Podgursky, 2000; Darling-Hammond, 2000). Along similar lines, critics of collegiate teacher education and state certification often make their arguments on the basis of the claim that there is an absence of evidence about their efficacy (e.g., Abell Foundation, 2001; Hess, 2001) and thus conclude that new approaches are needed. The Title II teacher quality reporting requirements that went into effect in 1998 following the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act are perhaps the most striking example of the current emphasis on evidence in teacher education. Title II requires that all states provide annual evidence to the federal government about the quality of teacher preparation, which in turn depends on institutions providing annual evidence to the state about the qualifications (especially scores on state teacher tests) of every candidate recommended for certification. The fourth annual report to Congress on teacher quality (U.S. Department of Education, 2005)--the first issued by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings--stated that the collection of "objective data" from every state regarding teacher preparation and certification has made possible the "first national systematic and comprehensive data resource about teacher preparation" (p. …