Presidents' Summit on Teacher Quality

Few would disagree that ensuring well-prepared teachers is essential to the nation?s goal of educating all children to high standards. But how does one translate a desire to improve teacher education into the actions that must be taken to achieve that goal?

On September 15 and 16, 1999, Secretary Riley convened almost sixty-five presidents and chancellors of the nation?s institutions of higher education, representing forty states, to discuss their role in elevating the importance and improving the quality of teacher preparation on their campuses. A series of small group sessions, the central part of the Summit, provided the opportunity for college and university presidents to discuss specific issues around improving teacher education and to generate concrete action steps that they and their colleagues could take.

Presidents met in small groups, each facilitated by one of their peers and by an individual with a national perspective on the topic of discussion. Each session focused on one of three topics:

• mission and structure;
• partnerships; and
• accountability.

The pages that follow frame the importance of each of these three discussion themes and present challenges and critical questions, which Summit participants received in advance of the Summit. Next, for each theme—mission and structure, partnerships, and accountability—readers will find recommendations, generated by the presidents who attended the Summit, of actions that higher education presidents and chancellors might take to improve teacher education at their institutions.

These next steps do not represent consensus among Summit participants. The recommendations are provided in their entirety so that leaders of higher education institutions throughout the nation might find several ideas that they can implement on their own campuses.