Summative Evaluation of Student Teachers

Abstract

This article proposes that teacher education faculty are not taking sufficient care in preventing weak, incompetent student teachers from attaining state licenses. Several factors that contribute to this problem are cited and discussed. One explanation accounting for the difficulty in withholding licensure from weak students is that the concept of incompetence is not sufficiently clear. Responding to this explanation, the authors make the following two distinct contributions: (a) They place incompetence in a continuum of teaching behaviors from criminality and malpractice through best practice; and (b) teaching acts in specific settings are pronounced as indicators of teacher incompetence. The article concludes with significant caveats that need to be taken into account as the definitions of incompetence are shared or adopted.