Preparing to become a music teacher educator is a complex process and one component of this process should be learning to model, demonstrate, and teach assessment practices to preservice music educators. The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to discover how, and to what extent, music teacher educators (MTEs) are educated about…

The U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) is dedicated to improving results for infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities ages birth through 21 by providing leadership and financial support to assist institutions of higher education (IHEs), states, and local districts. During a 5-year period, OSEP…

Teacher educators have an obligation to prepare preservice teachers with the skills and dispositions necessary to promote a socially just world. Yet the results of this study uncovered that the majority of elementary preservice teachers in a national sample (N = 846) have a simplistic perception of good citizenship consistent with what Westheimer…

More than half of all school-age children in the United States read below grade level (NCES, 2012a). Seventy-five percent of all special education referrals are due to poor reading skills (NCES, 2012b). The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services reports that 50% or more of students with disabilities score at or below the 20th…

The Early Learning Challenge (ELC) program awarded more than $1 billion in four-year grants to 20 States to implement comprehensive and cohesive high-quality early learning systems that support young children with high needs and their families. A key lever in making these improvements was the enhancement of States' Quality Rating and Improvement…

Background: Extant literature contends that it can be difficult for White preservice teachers to develop culturally relevant curriculum for the diverse students whom they will encounter in classrooms. Though there is a significant body of research about culturally responsive pedagogy, teacher education programs have struggled with how to best…

Improving teacher preparation is critical to long-term improvement in teacher quality. More than 200,000 new teachers enter classrooms each year. Increasing student enrollment, the retirement of baby boom generation teachers, and high attrition in their first five years (between 40 and 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession) have…

This article examines three interlinked problems facing public schools today: how to recruit, retain, and pay our teachers. The article begins with an overview of the current situation in the United States, paying particular attention to schools in areas where minorities are the majority. It goes on to examine some of the causes of teacher…

Our nation's educational system has scored many extraordinary successes in raising the level of reading and writing skills in younger children. Yet the pace of literacy improvement in our schools has not kept up with the accelerating demands of the global knowledge economy. In state after state, the testing data mandated by No Child Left Behind…

Engaging in the charter school sector is not for the faint of heart--doing so requires grappling with many complex questions. How will the work impact the reputation of the university? What political, financial or legal liabilities will the institution assume? Who will do the day-to-day heavy lifting? Across the country, dynamic higher education…

This article describes a research study in which a biologist and his research on Antarctic seabirds became part of an integrated science course for prospective elementary teachers. Students used the scientist's database on seabird chick growth rates for an experimental design investigation while the "regular" classes had a single science…

This article examines the current and potential contributions of the University Consortium for Catholic Education (UCCE) to both K-12 and higher Catholic education. In order to situate the development of alternative teacher preparation programs, a history of Catholic teacher formation is addressed followed by a brief summary of the existing…

In the first decade of the 21st century, the nation, the states, and colleges and universities began to grapple with the challenges of globalization, changing demography, the implications of the digital era, and of a less expansive public sector. Although not a transformative period for higher education, the decade saw significant innovations in…