The university’s role in preparing teachers for urban schools

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The university’s role in preparingteachers for urban schoolsNancy Robb Singer a , Susan Catapano b & Sarah Huisman ca English/Division of Teaching & Learning , University of Missouri ,St. Louis, USAb Educational Leadership , University of North Carolina ,Wilmington, USAc Human Environmental Sciences Department , FontbonneUniversity , St. Louis, USAPublished online: 10 May 2010.

To cite this article: Nancy Robb Singer , Susan Catapano & Sarah Huisman (2010) Theuniversity’s role in preparing teachers for urban schools, Teaching Education, 21:2, 119-130, DOI:10.1080/10476210903215027

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Teaching EducationVol. 21, No. 2, June 2010, 119–130

ISSN 1047-6210 print/ISSN 1470-1286 online© 2010 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/10476210903215027http://www.informaworld.com

The university’s role in preparing teachers for urban schools

Nancy Robb Singera*, Susan Catapanob and Sarah Huismanc

aEnglish/Division of Teaching & Learning, University of Missouri, St. Louis, USA; bEducational Leadership, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, USA; cHuman Environmental Sciences Department, Fontbonne University, St. Louis, USATaylor and FrancisCTED_A_421676.sgm(Received 14 January 2009; final version received 26 May 2009)10.1080/10476210903215027Teaching Education1047-6210 (print)/1470-1286 (online)Original Article2010Taylor & Francis212000000June 2010Dr [email protected]

Many teacher education programs in the United States (US) face increasingdemands to better prepare teachers for entry into and retention in urban schools.Through a US Department of Education grant, a university–school partnershipwas formed to develop a community-based model of teacher preparation thatplaced pre-service teachers in urban schools for a full year. Based onquestionnaires and interviews with university teacher education faculty, and bothpre-service and novice classroom teachers who took their first jobs in urbanschools, this research considers the common concerns and disparate roles that thethree groups considered paramount in preparing new teachers for urban schools.

Keywords: community partnership and service; teacher education curriculum;teacher professionalism; teacher socialization; urban education

Introduction

Some teacher education programs in the United States are under scrutiny – and somerisk lack of funding and accreditation – as they face skeptics who demand to knowwhy they are not more effective in preparing highly effective teachers. Those whodoubt the validity of the teacher education programs use as evidence the pooracademic performance of children in pre-K-12 programs, especially culturally diversechildren in low-income areas (Darling-Hammond, 2006).

Many teacher education programs have made changes voluntarily, while a grow-ing number of school districts and state licensing agencies accept alternative ways tolicense or certify teachers to meet the growing demand (Gimbert & Cristol, 2005).These changes, however, have not been effective in combating the high teacherturnover. Among all US educators, job turnover hovers around 16% in comparisonwith the overall national job turnover rate of 11%. The annual turnover rate of teachersin large, urban schools, however, climbs to over 21%, with more teachers leavingsome urban high schools each year than seniors graduating (Ingersoll, 2001; NationalCenter for Educational Statistics, 2008). The National Education Association (2008)reports that 20% of all new hires leave the classroom within three years and in urbandistricts as many as 50% of new teachers leave during their first five years of teaching.

Many children attending urban schools are the most vulnerable for school failure.In comparison with suburban schools, a disproportionate number of children in urban

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

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120 N.R. Singer et al.

schools are low-income, qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, live in poverty, livein single-parent homes where the parent has not graduated from high school and,increasingly, do not speak English as their first language. Some children enter theirurban, pre-K-12 schools already at risk for school failure. Often, a young, white,middle-income, female teacher who is probably in her first teaching job will greetthem. Population trends and teacher turnover rates suggest that this is not likely tochange any time in the near future (Hodgkinson, 2002).

The culture of the students is only one reason for teacher turnover in urbanschools. Teacher satisfaction surveys note that lack of administrative support, lack ofresources, lack of mentoring, poorly maintained facilities, and low pay are alsocontributing factors to high turnover in urban schools (Kersaint, Lewis, Potter, &Meisels, 2007). In the urban district that is part of this study, the recruitment andretention office informed researchers that the first reason teachers note for leaving thedistrict is lack of administrative support (personal communication, 2007). If we under-stand the issue of teacher retention as complex and not easily remedied, are there stepswe can take to better prepare new teachers for the realities of teaching in urbanschools? What is the role and responsibility of the university as we prepare the nextgeneration of teachers?

Universities face challenges when trying to reform teacher education programs toaddress the needs of urban schools. Typically, US teacher education programs arebuilt on a foundation of educational courses that cover topics broadly, moving intomore specific content-area courses during the final semesters of a pre-serviceteacher’s preparation. Some faculty members are resistant to change programs andcourses. Faculty members may lack a true or realistic understanding of today’s urbanschools or the skills necessary to teach in them. Others feel it is not the university’srole to prepare pre-service teachers for a specific teaching situation. The resultantteacher education curriculum is often a loose affiliation of courses that attempts toprepare the new teacher for everything and make him or her a master of very little(Akmal & Miller, 2003; Goodlad, 1999).

Reforming teacher education to consider culture and diversity

The current trend in US teacher preparation programs is for pre-service teachers to bewhite, middle class, female, English-speaking, and suburban-dwelling (Banks, 2000;Hodgkinson, 2002; Ladson-Billings, 2000). The majority of children attending manyof the schools in urban districts are children of color; more than half perform belowgrade level; and many struggle in neighborhoods where housing, jobs, and a basicstandard of living are often not adequate (Hodgkinson, 2002). This mismatch of cultureand background places new teachers in situations with two challenges. First, they mustlearn to transfer what they learned from their teacher preparation program into becom-ing a teacher. Secondly, they often struggle to meet the needs of diverse students andfamilies because they have little experience with supporting diverse cultures andlearners in their classroom (Ukpokodu, 2007). Ukpokodu (2004) notes that the culturaldisparity between teachers and learners often ends up with teachers lowering theirexpectations for student achievement and affirming teacher biases and beliefs aboutdiverse students (Darling-Hammond, 1996; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Schulte, 2005).

One way to transform this biased thinking is to modify teacher preparationprograms – especially those that prepare new teachers to work in nearby urbanschools – to include relevant and authentic experiences that will help pre-service

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Teaching Education 121

teachers understand the culture and community where they will be working.However, Ukpokodu (2004) notes several studies confirming that courses in multi-cultural education, usually taught at the university and without authentic fieldexperiences, have not been successful in transforming pre-service teachers’ attitudesabout diverse children (Griffiths & Poursanidou, 2005; Habberman, 1991; Ladson-Billings, 2000; Larke, 1990; Moore & Reeves, 1992; Sleeter, 1992). Some teachereducation programs are reluctant to provide field experiences in culturally diverseschools for a variety of reasons. Some university faculty believe the issue of culturaldiversity is politically motivated, some deem it not an academic area of study, andstill others have not had personal experience working in diverse settings themselvesand feel inadequate or uncomfortable addressing issues specific to urban schools(Ukpokodu, 2007).

School–university partnerships and supporting new teachers

School–university partnerships are not new to teacher education. Goodlad (2004), aneducational theorist and reformer, and The Holmes Partnership (Holmes Group, 2008),a group of universities working together for educational reform, both developed modelsand criteria to reform education through university–school partnerships. Both recognizethe value of quality partnerships that support the preparation of new teachers. Manyresearchers have explored the success of school-university partnerships in preparingnew teachers for schools located in urban areas (Burbank & Dynak, 2005; Cavallo,Ferreira, & Roberts, 2005; Conaway, Browning, & Purdum-Cassidy, 2007; Miller,Duffy, Rohr, Gasparello, & Mercier, 2005; O’Donnel & Gallegos, 2006).

While criteria for successful partnerships vary among geographic areas and demo-graphic groups, certain key concepts are present in all school–university partnerships.First, many of the partnerships were established because of the need of the school toattract new teachers with specific skills. Some of these personnel needs include mathor science content teachers and others are teachers with second languages or aware-ness of diverse learners (Cavallo et al., 2005; Miller et al., 2005; O’Donnel &Gallegos, 2006). Next, partnerships provide opportunities for classroom teachers toimplement a new curriculum or use alternative teaching strategies, such as cooperativegroup learning, by having pre-service teachers as support in the classroom (Cavallo etal., 2005). In addition, school–university partnerships allow pre-service teachers anduniversity faculty to engage in teaching strategies such as inquiry-based instructionwith learners (Masci & Stotko, 2006; Ridley, Hurwitz, Hackett, & Miller, 2005).Without the opportunity to work directly with learners, this type of teaching andlearning could not be demonstrated by faculty or viewed by pre-service teachers.Finally, although school–university partnerships are not always successful, they allstrive to create a mutual learning environment and improve both institutions as a resultof the partnership (Burbank & Dynak, 2005; Conaway et al., 2007; Griffiths &Poursanidou, 2005; Ledoux & McHenry, 2008; Wong & Glass, 2005).

Preparing teachers for urban schools

The local, urban school district in this study is located in a Midwestern city. It employed40% of one university’s new teacher graduates annually. However, the district reportedthat as many as 50% of new teachers leave each year (personnel communication,recruitment and retention officer, 2006). As a result, the university and school district,

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in collaboration, submitted a proposal for and received a $3.2 million US Departmentof Education Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant (2004–2008). The purpose of thegrant was to help the university develop a teacher education program that wouldprepare highly qualified teachers for immediate placement in the district. Although theuniversity also conducts an alternative-entry teacher preparation program, the subjectof this study was the traditional pre-service, undergraduate, baccalaureate-level,teacher education program.

Faculty sought the federal grant to assist them in developing a program specific tohelping pre-service teachers learn about the cultural diversity in the urban district sothey would be better prepared to support the academic achievement of the students.Almost 90% of the pre-service teachers in the elementary and early childhoodprograms fit the description of teachers in pre-service programs across the US; that is,they were white, middle-income, suburban-dwelling, and female (Banks, 2000;Hodgkinson, 2002; Ladson-Billings, 2000). The children in this school district are85% minority, 81% African American, and 80% eligible for free or reduced pricelunch (Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2008). Faculty,after review of the literature and discussion, decided that the most effective way toprepare pre-service teachers to be successful in the urban district was to increase thetime spent in field experiences and to offer as many teacher preparation courses aspossible on-site, in the school district. Darling-Hammond and colleagues note theimportance of situational learning:

Finally, modern learning theory makes clear that expertise is developed within specificdomains and learning is situated within specific contexts where it needs to be developedand from which it must be helped to transfer … it now seems clear that, to be enacted,teachers’ learning should be developed in ways that derive from and connect to thecontent and students they teach. (Darling-Hammond, Hammerness, Rust, & Shulman2005, pp. 403–404)

The long-term goal for the new program was to provide the impetus for curricular andprogrammatic changes in the pre-service education program at the Midwesternuniversity, in an effort to prepare and retain high-quality teachers in this urban schooldistrict. Additionally, the grant provided assistance – in the form of mentoring, profes-sional development, and classroom monies – to new teachers, in an effort to supportthem and to reduce the rate of attrition among new teachers in the urban district.

Members of the university faculty and local school district personnel, districtadministrators, principals and classroom teachers all worked together to establish aprofessional development school partnership and contribute to a community-basedmodel (CBM) of teacher preparation. The new program provided pre-service teacherswith opportunities to learn about the communities where they would be teaching,while placing them for extended field experiences in the urban schools. Pre-serviceteachers were placed in urban classrooms for a full year of internship (one day perweek during the first semester and then five days per week during the second, andfinal, semester of their teacher preparation program). In addition, several of themethods courses in mathematics and literacy were taught in a classroom in one of theurban schools, where they would tutor the young learners as part of the methodscourse. Pre-service teachers spent up to three semesters working and learning withinthe partnership schools. Most importantly, university faculty members were on-sitewith students during the methods courses and the first semester of internship. This on-site support offered university faculty opportunities to help pre-service teachers

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deconstruct biases about working in urban schools. Classroom teachers and facultyworked together, along with the building principal, to guide the pre-service teacher asthey learned about school district required curriculum, school culture, and the diver-sity of the children in the school.

Building on Ukpokodu’s (2007) work that notes the lack of preparation of manynew teachers to work with diverse students, the CBM also infuses the community intothe teacher preparation model. Key features of the pre-service teachers’ preparationhighlighted urban community awareness and resources, including a fact-finding bustour of the communities surrounding the schools. These tours highlighted accessibleurban community resources such as the zoo, botanical gardens, science center andother local resources, to help new teachers recognize the assets in the urban area.

On campus, pre-service teachers were also given access to a recycling center. Thecenter provided donated materials for classroom reuse. For instance, pre-serviceteachers made use of items that could be used for math manipulatives (counters),containers for classroom organization, and general materials for project-based, hands-on learning. The center also gave pre-service teachers access to a laminator, die-cutmachine, and supplies that would be useful to new teachers. Prior to internship, pre-service teachers also participated in a poverty simulation. They were placed in the roleof a person living in poverty. The goal of the simulation was to push pre-service teach-ers to think about poverty and social justice issues from a different perspective – andin particular how those issues intersected with the education of the children theywould be teaching.

The grant also worked under the premise that teacher retention in urban schoolswas not only about pre-service teacher education but also about induction of newteachers. An experienced, urban teacher was provided through the grant to mentornew teachers in their first three years of employment in the district. This mentorvisited new teachers’ classrooms each month. The role of the mentor was to help newteachers by providing advice on classroom and behavior management, professionaldecisions, and curriculum. In trying times, the mentor was also a confidant.

Guiding questions and data sources

After four years of grant funding and work in the schools, researchers wished toexplore the sustainability of the CBM of teacher preparation. Did new teachers feelas though the CBM met their needs to be successful in hard-to-staff schools? Howand to what degree did university faculty alter their curriculum to prepare teachersfor urban schools? The researchers believe that exploration of these questions willhelp evaluate the work of the grant and explore the sustainability of the CBMmodel.

In spring 2008, data were collected through surveying faculty and both pre-serviceand new teachers who graduated from the CBM-based teacher preparation program.Researchers developed surveys to explore faculty perception on their personal roleand the university’s role in preparing pre-service teachers to teach in urban schools.Open-ended questions were used and are provided in the Appendix. Using an onlinedata collection system, surveys were distributed to 99 faculty members in the Collegeof Education; 51 were completed. Faculty completing the survey included (untenured,part-time) adjuncts (33.3%), (untenured, full-time) lecturers (15.7%), varying levelsof professors (33.4%), and graduate assistants (7.8%). Of the remainder, 7.8% repliedother and 2% did not respond to this question. Faculty members were asked eight

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questions to explore their attitudes towards their role in preparing pre-service teachersto teach in urban schools.

In addition to sending surveys to faculty, pre-service teachers who were currentlyenrolled in the elementary and early childhood programs at the university and who hadparticipated in the CBM program were also surveyed. Pre-service teachers were in atraditional four-year undergraduate program that included a series of foundation andmethods courses required before internship. Foundation courses included introductionto education, working with learners with special needs, and educational psychology.Methods courses included content-based subjects in reading, language arts, science,social studies, and mathematics. All pre-service teachers had just completed their year-long internship. A total of 86 surveys was sent out via electronic survey, with 23 respon-dents completing the survey. All 23 respondents completed the first semester of theirinternship in one of two partnership elementary schools in the urban school district.At the end of the first semester of the internship, pre-service teachers had a choice ofwhether to return to the urban school for their final semester or to move to a differentschool that was not located in the urban district. Eighteen of the 23 were pre-serviceteachers who completed both semesters of their internship in an urban school. Pre-service teachers were asked eight questions to explore their opinion on the university’srole in preparing pre-service teachers to teach in urban schools (see Appendix).

Lastly, surveys were sent to new teachers who were currently working in urbanschools and were recent graduates of the university. Of the 26 surveys distributed, 11were completed. These included four classroom teachers who had just completed theirfirst year of teaching, four who had completed their second year, and two who hadcompleted their third year; one respondent skipped this question. All new teacherswere teaching in kindergarten through sixth-grade classrooms. They were asked eightquestions to explore their opinion on the role of the university in preparing new teach-ers to work in urban schools (see Appendix).

To ensure reliability, the researchers coded the open-ended portions of thecompleted surveys independently and then analyzed for common themes. Data weretriangulated through interviews with key participants.

Findings

Among the three sets of surveys – pre-service teachers, new teachers, and universityfaculty – key differences were immediately apparent in the perceived role of theuniversity in preparing new teachers for urban schools. All of the groups addressedsimilar concerns – teacher education curriculum, field experiences, level of prepared-ness, lifelong learning – yet each group took a different position in foregroundingthese as higher or lower-level concerns.

Teacher education curriculum

For university faculty, their focus was primarily on subject-specific content. Facultyfelt it was incumbent upon them to deliver content-specific course material, citing thatthey wished “to prepare [their] students to teach elementary math” or to “increase skillin the content area.” Faculty also concerned themselves with how the universitycoursework would fulfill state certification requirements. Responses indicated thatfew of the faculty altered how they delivered the curriculum or what they taught thepre-service teachers because of the significant number (40%) of pre-service teachers

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accepting jobs in urban schools. Researchers, as developers of the CBM, altered theircontent and delivery; however, the general faculty did not.

Pre-service teachers, on the other hand, wanted courses dealing with what theysaw as more immediate concerns. One pre-service teacher said she wanted to know“how schools operate, how children learn and develop, how to prepare lessons for theday/year and how to present them and motivate students. [I want] experience in theclassroom with plenty of guidance.” Another said of her university coursework thatthere was “insufficient formal and informal lesson plan writing instruction, the meth-ods class is outdated, [there is] too much PE, art, and music [and] not enough class-room management, state standards, and assessment.” Indeed, classroom managementwas cited specifically by 25% of the pre-service respondents who said that theywished a course in classroom management had been a regular part of their teachereducation curriculum. (As a result of these comments, a course on classroommanagement was developed and was required for the program beginning in fall 2009.)Pre-service teachers also cited other areas as lacking in their preparation, such asspecial education, differentiated instruction, and parent communication.

Field experiences

While all groups identified “real world” or “hands-on” experience as a key componentof pre-service teacher education, the university faculty and pre-service teachers’definitions of these terms were quite different. Overwhelmingly, faculty perceivedthat the “real world” component of pre-service teacher education had been providedby observation hours in foundation courses and internship. However, pre-serviceteachers articulated that their mere presence in a school was not enough. Many felt asthough they were just marking time. One pre-service teacher said, “the observations[and] community hours assigned are arbitrary and gratuitous.” Faculty also did notmention the location of the field experiences as important. Researchers whodeveloped the CBM were adamant that pre-service teachers must complete field expe-riences in the schools where they would eventually be working. Other faculty did notsupervise the field experiences of their students and did not have any future plans todo so.

For pre-service teachers participating in the CBM of teacher preparation, on-sitesupervision meant university faculty were present at least one day per week during theregular school day at the urban school. The on-site supervision was highly individu-alized, with university instructors employing reflective practice and specific strategiesfor classroom application. “[My university supervisor] helped us in our ideas andeverything. If we had an idea that wasn’t exactly what she thought we should do, shewould … redirect us,” explained one participant. Overwhelmingly, pre-service teach-ers said that some of the best, most relevant instruction occurred at their school sitewhere their university instructors could help to guide them to observe for specificinstructional strategies, to practice techniques to manage student behavior, and toprovide strategies for time management.

Level of preparedness

Under the US No Child Left Behind legislation, all of the participants in this study wereconsidered “highly qualified” teachers as all had successfully completed an accreditedteacher education program and passed the PRAXIS II exam. However, we found that

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not all new teachers felt highly qualified to teach all children – especially children inurban schools. Our data analysis revealed that new teachers who identified themselvesas highly qualified to work with students in urban schools correlated to those who hadcompleted substantial field placements in urban schools. On the survey administeredto pre-service teachers who had done their fieldwork in both urban and suburbansettings, 87% said they felt prepared both as a highly qualified teacher and as a teacherfor an urban school. However, when the data were disaggregated by those whocompleted internships in urban schools, the number rose to 94%. One student whoparticipated in the CBM of teacher preparation said: “These last two years of educationhave been challenging and demanding, but experience is the final chapter in becominghighly qualified.” Clearly, students who had a concentrated, year-long internship in anurban school felt better positioned to meet the challenges of urban schools.

Results from the faculty survey indicated that half of the instructors (50%) feltthat they either did not think the faculty was doing a good job preparing pre-serviceteachers for urban schools or they marked the question as “hard to know/hard toanswer.” One respondent said, “I need to find out more about what is actually beingdone in order to offer any suggestions for improvement.” Other university facultymembers did not feel it was their responsibility to prepare new teachers for urbanschools. One respondent said: “[It is] not our job to staff schools … Our job is totrain new teachers to work successfully in different environments. We are not anemployment agency.” Another said: “It is the role of the university to prepare thebest new teachers, but it is not their role to staff the urban schools.” Responses to thisquestion might have been skewed because the survey came from researchers whodeveloped the CBM. Faculty knew the requirements for preparing students throughthe model and many were reluctant to go on-site to urban schools for field supervi-sion or to alter their courses to include this experience (personal communication,faculty meetings 2004–2008).

Lifelong learning

University faculty also saw their role overwhelmingly as being one of establishingpre-service teachers’ dispositions toward lifelong learning. One faculty member saidshe wanted her pre-service teachers “to become mature, competent professionals whoare not afraid to try new methods and technologies.” Another wanted to support “newteachers as decision-makers so that they [could] act as agents of change in the schoolsin which they work.”

University faculty responded in this research that they are setting the stage forlifelong learning by encouraging new teachers to try new methods and to becomedecision makers. However, these concepts are often incongruous with what newteachers face when they are required to follow a scripted curriculum. Is the univer-sity there just to set the preparation stage? One classroom teacher said, “I thinkthe university’s role is to ensure new teachers are ready formally to enter theirprofession. It is hard to teach/learn about being a teacher until you are in thatclassroom and on your own and doing things the way that works for you.”Another said, “I feel like even though I have a degree in elementary education Ican effectively teach any subject because I have the essential tools for classroommanagement, keeping students interested, giving and receiving response from allmy students, etc.”

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Discussion and further research

To sustain this kind of model, universities must focus on faculty professionaldevelopment. The faculty members at this university are not unlike the profile of thepre-service teachers they teach. That is, they comprise largely white, middle-classfemales. While the faculty members are sympathetic to issues of cultural diversity andsocial justice, they simply have had little experience working in urban schools them-selves. Faculty survey respondents admitted that they needed to “learn more about theunique needs of urban schools” so that they could make “urban examples and termi-nology a regular practice in their own classroom.” Throughout the development andimplementation of the CBM, researchers were challenged by faculty on the need toalter curriculum and include on-site field experiences that were supervised by faculty.Throughout the process of developing this model, grant funds were available tofaculty to participate in the model and very few took advantage of the support.

Along with resources, universities must establish a vision and commitment tosupport faculty working and learning alongside their pre-service teachers in theschools where the pre-service teachers will be accepting their first teaching assign-ment. A system that rewards faculty for innovative and sustained efforts in urbanschools will also be necessary to encourage faculty to participate. In other words, theremust be a buy-in from university administrators to support field-based mentorshipsand research as valued for tenure and promotion. One university faculty member said:“The university is responsible for supporting faculty to reach out to the local schoolsto help establish realistic field placements. It is also the responsibility of the universityto recognize faculty work in community partnerships.” Moreover, universities must beclear about their mission if that mission is to include preparation of pre-serviceteachers for urban schools.

As the federal grant ends, faculty, who worked to establish the processes reportedhere, wonder if the university will continue to support the CBM model. The conclu-sions drawn from this research do not point to sustainable, systemic change at theuniversity level. Despite efforts to draw the wider faculty into the CBM at this univer-sity, few availed themselves of the opportunity. Indeed, although the faculty membersworking directly on building the CBM supported one another, there was notwidespread support for the program. Pre-service teachers and university facultyresisted participating when they did not feel comfortable working in an urban school.After several years of defending the process, the set of teacher preparation courses thatuse the CBM is only a choice – not a requirement – for pre-service teachers in elemen-tary and early childhood programs.

Using information collected about the CBM revealed a strong support between theeight elementary schools and the university after four years of working together todevelop a university–school partnership. Using the Holmes Partnership ideals as aguide, the faculty and school personnel developed a CBM of teacher preparation thatestablished new organizational thinking at both the school and the university levels(Holmes Group, 1995). The school district has had extreme turnover in districtadministration – notably six superintendents in four years. However, the partnershipcontinues at the school level, with principals requesting professional development andsupport from the university. In return, the principals are eager to place pre-serviceteachers and hire them as classroom teachers, and to provide on-site classrooms andworkspace for the university faculty engaged with classroom teachers in rich researchprojects that benefit both.

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However, if the CBM of teacher preparation is to continue, the needs of pre-service teachers cannot be overlooked. The program did much to bring new educatorsto the schools where they were needed most, but did it do enough when new teachersare still leaving urban schools at alarming rates? A community of learners certainlycannot be established when the community is in a constant state of turnover. Furtherstudy is needed to determine what is needed at the school level to support newteachers.

A lynchpin to the success of a program such as this one must be the on-sitepresence of faculty members who can work in situ to deconstruct what new teachersare observing and to offer solutions and alternatives. University classrooms may givepre-service teachers the theoretical tools, but without guidance on how to use thesetools the value of the lesson is diminished. To engage pre-service teachers in authenticreflective practice, university faculty must be on-site where they can learn alongsidethe pre-service teachers and intervene in the process when needed. Teacher educatorswould be well-advised to look to other teaching models – apprentice/craftsman,intern/physician – as ways to work alongside pre-service teachers to make theory topractice more transparent.

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Appendix. Survey instruments

Survey of new teachers:

1. Please mark what best describes you: Always attended university, Transferredfrom community college, Transferred from other college or university, Finish-ing certification only, Already have a degree, Other.

2. What is your certification area?3. What do you think the role or responsibility of the university is in the prepa-

ration of new teachers?4. Do you think the university is preparing you to be a highly qualified teacher?5. Do you think you will be prepared to teach in schools in urban or rural areas?6. What changes would you suggest to the teacher education program that would

better prepare you to be a teacher?7. What could faculty do to improve efforts in helping you to become a highly

qualified teacher?8. Other comments.

Survey of university faculty:

1. Please check the role that best describes your position at the university:adjunct, lecturer, assistant professor, associate professor, professor, graduatestudent, other.

2. How many classes do you usually teach each semester?3. What goal(s) do you have in your class(es) for preparing new teachers?4. What do you think the role of university faculty is in the preparation of new

teachers?5. What do you think the role or responsibility of the university is in the prepa-

ration of new teachers?6. Do you think the university is preparing highly qualified teachers?7. What responsibility does the faculty have in preparing new teachers for

schools, usually found in urban or rural areas?8. How well do you think the faculty is doing in fulfilling this responsibility?9. What could faculty do to improve efforts in meeting this responsibility?

10. Other comments.

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Documents

The university’s role in preparing teachers for urban schools