Today's linguistically diverse classrooms require teachers who are properly educated to communicate effectively with students, parents, and the larger community. Teacher education programs have the responsibility of preparing teachers with these skills and of responding to the shortage of racial and ethnic minorities within the state of New York's teaching pool. Five issues are relevant when considering how schools of education should respond to this shortage: (1) currently, schools of education have a largely Caucasian, female, and monolingual student population; (2) the proliferation of languages among today's school population makes it imperative that teachers be prepared to offer bilingual learning opportunities to their students; (3) teacher education programs need the capacity to prepare multiculturally aware teachers; (4) teacher education programs need to prepare teachers who are willing and able to teach in areas of teacher shortage, particularly urban areas; and (5) schools of education must place multicultural competence on par with intellectual competence in their teacher education programs. At present, many schools of education fail to prepare teachers to work effectively with culturally and linguistically diverse students because these higher education institutions do not themselves model the kinds of interpersonal relationships, collegiality, student-centered pedagogy, and relevant curriculum that the teachers they produce must be able to implement. An approach to improving the ability of schools of education to respond to the needs of today's diverse school population lies in creating closer working relationships with schools. The Professional Development School as proposed by the Holmes Group is a promising model of meaningful collaboration. (IAH)