Current teacher testing is a symptom of what is wrong with American public education, rooted in invalid generalizations of method from one discipline to another. America's top educational policymakers are rarely educators, instead tending to be political leaders. The Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) has produced a useful expression of model core standards for licensing teachers. Prototype classroom performance assessments and the INTASC Test of Teaching Knowledge are also being developed. Examining the 10 principles, and their subcategories of knowledge, dispositions, and performances, demonstrates how elusive teaching professional qualities are when attempting to reduce them to standardized testing. Nonetheless, political decisionmakers argue that standardized tests are what is available and economical today in teacher testing (making the assumption that questionable testing is better than no testing). Policymakers give little attention to the predictive validity of standardized instruments. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards has adopted performance assessment, which is considered fair and accurate, as its methodology. Though pragmatic responses to social problems have characterized American democracy, they are missing in teacher education. Pragmatism competes with lesser dispositions associated with denial, prejudice, and false optimism in the realm of teacher supply and quality. (Contains 20 references.) (SM)