The UK Coalition Government has recently introduced a number of education policies that aim to reform initial teacher development in England. It has argued that the training of new teachers will be improved by giving greater priority to the development of "key teaching skills". This narrowly practical and overly managerial approach to initial teacher training (ITT) is mistaken as it fails to recognise the developmental value of what might be described as powerful educational knowledge. As such, recent reforms of ITT seem unlikely to raise teaching standards. Standards of ITT might be improved, however, by giving new teachers access to powerful educational knowledge, such as that developed by Emile Durkheim. Powerful educational knowledge supports the development of new teachers by building their commitment, understanding and creativity.