This article describes the author's experience as President of the California Council on Teacher Education (CCTE) from 2004-2006, which began under difficult conditions due to her daughter's terminal illness. The author shares her story of how the organization supported her during this difficult time, which she feels is representative of the…

This article discusses the author's experience as President of the California Council on Teacher Education (CCTE), beginning in the Spring of 2014. The author established a personal goal to improve the relationship with members by reaching out and hearing their concerns. A membership survey was created and administered to members, delegates, and…

This article describes the author's personal involvement in the California Council for the Education of Teachers (Cal Council), beginning in 1960 and spanning four decades, which involved associations with key people in California teacher education and credentialing. The Cal Council was organized for leaders in teacher education from the…

The survival and prosperity of the California Council on the Education of Teachers/California Council on Teacher Education (CCET/CCTE) over its 70 years of existence is remarkable, especially given the historic roller coaster of educational policy and practice in the United States--the ups and downs of school financing, in addition to the ins and…

In this article, the authors describe how one group of California teacher educators has responded to the call for high school dropout rates with new thinking and action in regard to making teacher preparation a key strategy for reducing the dropout rates, raising student academic achievement, and eliminating the pervasive inequities in learning…

Learning to teach is a complex intellectual and adaptive performance act. Student engagement is the cornerstone of effective instruction. Current education reform policies, such as Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010) and Teacher Effectiveness…

Required courses in teacher education programs can sometimes prompt less-than-positive responses from pre-service teachers. Multicultural teacher educators, in particular, may face resistance from prospective teachers who, believing that they do not harbor prejudices, question the need to examine their attitudes toward culturally and…

Ultimately, the national goals of improving learning outcomes for all students and reducing, if not eliminating, the achievement gap require a teaching corps that brings knowledge and professional competencies to have positive impacts on diverse learners in diverse settings (Gándara & Maxwell-Jolly, 2006). As central actors in schools,…

Although ethical dilemmas are a constant in teachers' lives, the profession has offered little in the way of training to help teachers address such issues. This paper presents a framework, based on developmental theory, for resolving professional ethical dilemmas. The Four-Component Model of Moral Maturity, when used in conjunction with a…

This article discusses the importance and benefits of incorporating ethics into the classroom and presents five strategies that both scaffold students' understanding of ethical issues and support students' abilities to come to a reasoned and well-supported decision about those issues. (Contains 1 table and 4 notes.)

The purpose of this article is to identify some issues related to ethical and moral dispositions in teacher education programs. My intent is to provide a starting point for gaining a professional consensus on the ways that teacher educators approach the definition, assessment, and development of dispositions in their teacher education programs. To…

One of the major hurdles in preparing preservice teachers to differentiate instruction has been that they tend not to see much differentiated instruction in actual classrooms (Benjamin, 2002; Tomlinson, 1999). There always may be a contradiction in wanting to promote change in instructional practices while, at the same time, relying on a teacher…

The Census 2000 Brief (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2004b) indicates that English is not the heritage language of approximately one in five Americans, and the number of limited English proficient (LEP) students, also known as English language learners (ELLs), grew about 50 percent in the last decade. It is estimated that nearly 400,000 ELL…

This article describes the various components of a successful review from the standpoint of a veteran journal editor and encourages, in particular, young scholars to consider, if they have not already done so, becoming active participants not only in the authoring of scholarly work, but also as reviewers in the peer review process that is part of…

When the author adopted her son, she was an early childhood educator with a Master's Degree who had taught young children for eight years and directed a child care and infant-toddler center for seven. She thought she knew something about children. Actually, she had a great deal to learn. It took years for her to learn about his needs. He slowly…