If lack of excellence in the public schools is a problem, it does not follow naturally that teachers and their preparation are the only elements in society at fault. However, it may be that teachers and teacher preparation have not kept pace with societal changes and expectations. To most students it appears that the purpose of education is to enable them to score well on standardized tests. And, teachers, school administrators, school boards, parents, and state legislators seem to believe the myth that good test scores and educational quality are synonymous. In the area of reading instruction, the only real goal should be to help students understand or comprehend the message of the writer. The reading teacher must be more than a skill-driver; he or she must develop a working knowledge of the major theoretical bases on which sound reading instruction can be built. Therefore, a quality teacher education program in reading should include such attributes as established entrance criteria, performance-based curricula, early and frequent field experiences, computation and communication skills measurement, the requirement of an academic major for secondary education majors, and clinical experience supervised by college faculty with classroom teaching experience using an established teaching performance measurement system. Programs that do not measure up to these criteria need modification leading to improved quality. The only result of such activity can be excellence in preparation for teaching reading. (HOD)