Why?

Students are changing, demographically and culturally. Teaching is changing—or needs to change—as digital electronics make personalized learning increasingly possible and as project-based learning comes to be used increasingly as a method for motivation. School is changing, as new concepts of organization and of roles appear; most significantly, the concept of the school organized on the model of the partnership so common in other white-collar professional vocations.

Dissatisfaction with the current, traditional schools of education is high, even on the assumption that the job for the graduates will be the traditional job. And the job of teaching will be different. Teacher preparation must change to prepare teachers for this changing job.

How?

Not by asking the existing programs politely to change—or by harassing them or even by bribing them. Better: Create new the different program for preparing teachers. And have these created perhaps by nontraditional entities. There are professional fields in which the pre-service preparation is handled by management; in the building trades it is handled by the unions. Some organization or organizations should start a new non-traditional program; let that innovation improve, and spread.

What Will Result?

New approaches to teacher preparation will appear, responding to the changing needs in the profession. Successful models will get replicated, as other new programs appear or as existing programs adjust.