The Study About Evolution Process Of Teacher Education Professional Standards In USA After WWâ…¡

Since World War II, in order to improve the quality of education, the United Statesattaches great importance to the development and implementation of teacher educationprofessional standards. As the most authoritative organization, the National Council forAccreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) actively committed to the development,improvement and accreditation activities of the professional standards of teacher educationsince its establishment in1952. It has introduced and implemented a number of influentialteacher professional standards, which has greatly promoted the specialization development ofpostwar American teacher education.According to the different theory and orientation of evaluation, the progress of postwarAmerican teacher education professional standards can be roughly divided into four stages.The phase from the ending of WWII in1945to1960s was the “objective-based” stage.Early postwar, NCATE came into being in1952under the needs of improving the quality ofteacher education. In1957, NCATE introduced the first teacher education professionalstandards, which is a set of teacher education professional standards with the core of “teachereducation objective”, which determine the level of teachers’ professional education throughthe evaluation conditions and processes and eventually to make judgments of professionalrecognition. The implementation of this standard played a good promoting role in enhancingthe quality of teacher education program in the United States.The phase from1960s to1970s was the "curriculum-based" stage. In1960s, NCATE gota lot of criticism, with these doubt sound, NCATE began to revise the1957standards andintroduced a new teacher education professional standards in1970. This teacher educationstandard was based on the “curriculum” and to determine the level of professional teachereducation by the evaluation of teacher education profession lesson plans and other conditionsof implementation of the curriculum plan and ultimately make recognition judgments.Compared to the1957standards, the new teacher education professional standards has madegreat strides and established its curriculum structure including the following four aspects: general education, professional education, teaching subjects and student teaching.The phase of1980s to the mid-90s is the "knowledge-based" stage. In1980s, NCATEsuffered multiple crises from both external and internal and began to rebuild, at the same timealso to rethink and revise the1970standards. In1990, the rebuilt NCATE introduced the newteacher education professional standards, which focused on the effect and quality of teachereducation. The standard explicitly requires the teacher education program should beknowledge-based, which is the theoretical basis of curriculum development and curriculumdesign. The teacher education professional standard in1990conforms to the trend of reformand development in the United States, and promotes the process of teachingprofessionalization.The phase from the mid1990s until now is the "performance-based" stage. A newteacher education professional standard was introduced by NCATE in1995，and this standardwas revised twice respectively in2000and2008. The new standard evaluation based on"performance”, that made the evaluation focused on the knowledge generation, requiringstudents to demonstrate their learning outcomes, that is to assess students’ knowledge, skillsand development through students’ activities and achievements and to investigate the level ofteacher education profession.It is the social evaluation authority recognized by federal government to establish theteacher education professional standards and to evaluate the teacher education majors and tocombine the theory and practice during the process of making the teacher education standards,which is one important character of the evolution process for teacher education professionalstandards in America after WWII. The formulating and evaluation of teacher educationstandards had played an important role for improving the quality of American teachers andfurther for improving the quality of education and therefore had promoted the development ofteacher professionalization forward. The teacher education in China is during the transitiontime, so the experiences of the evolution process for postwar teacher education professionalstandards in America could be helpful for China’s teacher education.