The "raison d'etre" for traditional schools of education has radically shifted in recent years. Research demonstrates that schools have been remarkably unsuccessful at reducing the unacceptable achievement gap between black and Latino students, on the one hand, and white students, on the other, and some have laid the blame at the feet of those who prepare teachers. A number of recent, high-profile syntheses of research on the effects of teacher education on student learning have shown little in the way of effects, reinforcing the public view that schools of education are marginal players in education reform and student learning. Like it or not (frequently not), changes in the work are long overdue. This article describes how teacher educators at the University of Illinois at Chicago began to reconceptualize and understand their own responsibility for the preparation of teachers for urban Chicago.