Book Description

"This volume is the one of most comprehensive and deeply analytical works on teacher preparation to appear in decades. As a teacher educator, I deeply appreciate this thoughtful and critical examination of the issues, dilemmas, and trenchant problems of teaching and teacher education in America. This is a work well worth reading!"-Peter C. Murrell, Jr., Founding Dean, School of Education, and Professor of Educational Psychology, Loyola University Maryland "We need the best research, theories, and practices to make the kind of changes needed in the field of teacher education. This volume helps us take a major step in this direction. Teachers, prospective teachers, educational planners, and policy-makers will all benefit from engaging this book. Hopefully they will engage the chapters with open minds, and begin to challenge 'business as usual' approaches."-Peter McLaren, University of California, Los Angeles "This book is provocative, insightful, precise, and vital to our profession. Those whose lives intersect with teacher education will understand that this 'must read' text does more than merely encourage a transformative momentûit insists that a critical transformation is essential for the very survival of teacher education."-David Whaley, Associate Dean and Director of Teacher Education, Iowa State University EXTRACTS FROM THE TEXT: Why are fifteen million children and youth in poverty not achieving when we know that low-income students excel in the classrooms of "star" teachers (who comprise approximately 8 percent of the teaching force)? Whose needs or interests are being met in education reform today? Teachers who empathize with students and the life challenges they face soon realize that the dysfunctional bureaucracies will not permit them to meet the needs of their students. The expert advice dispensed by schools of education regarding what future teachers should do is not connected to any theory of learning, or to any reality of life in school classrooms. Does a qualified teacher equate to a quality teacher? This book offers a hard-hitting, thoroughly researched, historical, and theoretical critique of our schools of education, and clear recommendations about what must be done to ensure all children can achieve their potential.