Stand(ard) and Deliver: Yet Another Standards-Based Framework and the Ground-Level Work of Preservice Teacher Education

Abstract

The C3 Framework for Social Studies Standards, InTASC, and edTPA represent recent, influential standards-based initiatives directed toward the reform of preservice teacher education programs. Carried by the same neoliberal reform currents propelling broader educational reform in the United states, all three initiatives share common intellectual underpinnings. What does this apparent uniformity of purpose mean for the ground-level work of teacher education? We employ a self-study conceptual analysis of how we interpret reform-based standards in the context of our work in a social studies teacher education program. Reforms are continuously interpreted and adopted in education programs. Yet little is written about how educators take up these reforms and implement them in their work. This analysis reveals the meanings brought to bear on the comparatively stable discourse evident in this most recent reform movement, and troubles the assumed relationship between reformed standards documents and reformed teacher education.