This paper is a polemical discussion of assessment in teacher education. Working from the proposition that assessment serves a number of important purposes for a range of stakeholders (students, employers, quality assurance agencies, government), it argues that there is considerable potential for conflict between the different purposes. In an age of accountability and standards, assessment for learning may lose out to assessment of learning. The paper outlines a range of characteristics associated with assessment for learning and draws on examples of practitioner research to illustrate various approaches and methods of assessment that can improve the balance between these different purposes.