Abstract

During the two decades from 1998 to 2017, “holding teacher education accountable” emerged as the major approach to reforming teacher education in the United States (Cochran-Smith et al., 2016; Lewis & Young, 2013; Taubman, 2009). The logic was that greater accountability would boost teacher education quality, which would boost teacher quality (defined primarily in terms of students’ achievement), which would in turn ensure individual prosperity as well as the long-term economic health of the nation (Cochran-Smith et al., 2017). The key accountability assumption here is that enhanced teacher education quality depends on systematic and vigilant public evaluation and monitoring of outcomes related to teacher education institutions, programs, and teacher candidates. Across teacher education and other public domains, the rise in accountability regimes reflected the broad shift to a global and competitive knowledge society shaped by principles and policies derived from neoliberal economics and from the business world (Ambrosio, 2013; Furlong, Cochran-Smith & Brennan, 2009; O’Neill, 2002; Taubman, 2009).