Nontraditional teacher preparation pathways were designed to offer different forms of preparation meant to attract different populations of teachers; however, prior literature suggests they may not provide as much of an alternative as initially intended. Drawing on surveys of nearly 800 preservice student teachers and their mentor teachers, we…

The last several decades have seen significant growth among private options in alternative teacher education and certification. In this article, I draw on two parallel ethnographic studies of the experiences of participants in variants of one particular alternative teacher education model, developed by Teach For America in the United States and…

Employing data from a stratified random survey of newly certified teachers in Texas, we compare the mathematical content preparation of traditional teacher program graduates with graduates of alternative programs. We find that graduates of traditional programs have statistically significantly higher content preparation even when taking precollege…

This article examines Teach For America's (TFA) placement strategy in Miami-Dade County Public Schools, in which large numbers of TFA corps members are placed as clusters into a targeted set of disadvantaged schools, to investigate whether the large-scale infusion of TFA corps members into these schools induced broader improvements across the…

The National Council on Teacher Quality's (NCTQ) recent review of university-based teacher preparation programs concluded the vast majority of such programs were inadequately preparing the nation's teachers. The study, however, has a number of serious flaws that include narrow focus on inputs, lack of a strong research base, missing standards,…

In recent years, Teach for America (TFA) has placed thousands of high-achieving college graduates in hard-to-staff schools, and its popularity continues to grow. TFA thus represents an anomaly: it attracts higher education's top students to primary and secondary education's least desired jobs. This article reviews the current explanations for…

With increasing awareness of the importance of teacher quality for student learning, education policy leaders have turned their attention to the nation's teacher training programs as a potential target for reform. One proposed strategy is to increase competition for university-based programs by encouraging new program types. This study examines…

In the United States, about one third of new teachers being hired are drawn from alternative certification programs. One way to address controversy about the differences among the training experiences of teachers in traditional certification programs, fast-track alternative programs, and residency alternative programs is to examine teacher reports…

This article argues that the stifling of innovation in teacher education has threatened the vitality of the field. Departing from the typical debate over the merits of the traditional versus the alternative route, this article encourages a pluralistic approach to teacher preparation that the author believes holds promise for revitalizing the field…

The state of teaching and teacher education is the result of more than a century of compromises and adjustments demanded by the exigencies of another era. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the teaching profession was designed to match the rapid expansion of schooling. It relied on a captive pool of inexpensive, educated female labor…

This article describes an effort to create a coherent teacher recruitment, preparation and induction program in a large urban school district, based in part on the medical residency model. The article argues for several core principles in the creation of such a program: a) the program serves the school district, b) the program is structured to…

Reviewed high quality research on teacher preparation in five areas, discussing the development of review criteria. Questions included attention to subject matter and pedagogical preparation of prospective teachers, to the content and character of high quality field experiences and alternative routes, and to research on the effects of policies on…

Outlines possibilities and challenges for classroom teachers considering National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certification and other concerned educators synthesized from the available research and educational publications, asserting that the tension between the normalizing effects of teaching standards and national…

Responds to an article by Goodlad that points out the "congenital malaise" in teacher education, discussing what is needed to effect a cure. Suggests that Goodlad neglected to mention that the undergraduate major in education is partially responsible for this malaise, and it has been a mistake to package professional coursework into an…

Drawing on his nearly 30 years as a university teacher educator, the author reflects about the future of college- and university-based teacher education in the United States in light of recent attacks on education schools. The author argues that university and college teacher educators should do four things: (a) work to redefine the debate about…