Describes how passage of Proposition 227, California's initiative restricting bilingual education, has influenced teacher preparation to authorize specialized instruction for limited English proficient students. The response to Proposition 227 by San Diego State University's College of Education is explored to illustrate the reaffirmation of a…

Responds to common charges against formal teacher education programs, arguing that contextual knowledge of classrooms and schools is crucial for novice teachers; raw intelligence is insufficient for accomplished teaching; accomplished performance will develop only over many years of effortful, deliberate practice; and high quality teacher…

Drawing on a study of an experimental teacher education program, the paper recommends changes that prepare new teachers to assume greater leadership responsibility, particularly for collaborative curriculum design and implementation. Teacher educators must model these practices in teacher education coursework. A pedagogy of collective action…

Reports findings from interviews with teachers and parents in two states that have standards, attendant benchmarks, and standardized tests to assess students on the standards. Results indicate that teachers and parents are unanimous about the intense stress on all involved, the undermining of meaningful instruction and learning, and the high…

Changing conditions in teaching and national and state policy environments have dramatically increased the distance between undergraduate and graduate teacher education programs and ways that inservice teachers are being educated, reeducated, trained, and retrained. The paper highlights: comprehensive school reform and its meaning for new…

Examines how teacher education programs should prioritize diversity. Schools and colleges of education must radically transform their policies and practices and become places where teachers and students learn to effectively teach diverse populations. Teacher education programs must take a stand on social justice and diversity, make social justice…

Illustrates how teacher educators are caught up in ill-conceived, often contradictory policies and practices, providing examples of contradictory demands emanating from outside and within the academy. The paper discusses professional standards and how teacher shortages influence the way quality-control practices in teacher preparation are…

Argues for an ecological approach to supporting beginning teachers in critical inquiry classrooms, bridging the end of college with the beginning of teaching. School-university partnerships supporting reflective practices by creating large numbers of inquiry-based educators within school districts are needed. Journal entries from a student teacher…

Teacher education must create a theory of knowledge that can analyze social fractures, social violence, and how to make psychological significance from devastation. Referring to philosophers who were concerned with relationships between teacher education and social reparation, the paper advocates for a view of teacher education that can tolerate…

Addresses the dearth of literature about preparing teachers to teach African American students, the attempts by scholars to fill this void, and the need for ongoing research in this area, highlighting: the uniqueness of the African American cultural experience; strategies for improving teacher preparation (e.g., autobiography, restructured field…

Generalizations about problems and solutions facing teacher education are often oversimplified and misleading. Examinations of teacher supply and demand and teacher ability should consider local demand and content-area need. Teachers with content-area certification have stronger academic profiles than those with general certification. Raising…

Factors that make teaching and teacher education so difficult include: client cooperation; compulsory clientele; emotion management; structural isolation; and chronic uncertainty about teaching effectiveness. Issues that make teacher education particularly difficult include: the long apprenticeship of observation; ordinary skills and knowledge;…

Poses questions that probe possibilities regarding the knowledge base of teacher education and the importance of a foundation of teacher education, considering the possibility of trustworthiness as a cornerstone for that foundation and looking to the potential of self-study for developing a pedagogy of teacher education as a way to respond to…

Proposes three problems that must be solved in order to best prepare teachers who both know content and can make use of it to help all students learn, including: identifying the content knowledge that matters for teaching; understanding how such knowledge needs to be held; and determining what it takes to learn to use such knowledge in practice.…

Examines recent implementation of the controversial Massachusetts Educator Certification Tests and the educational, legal, and public policy issues in the implementation of a teacher testing program. The paper focuses on: the contexts for teacher testing; the tests themselves; the quality of the tests; and legal issues in teacher testing and…