Quite commonly, reports on elementary and secondary school teachers begin with the rather obvious notion that the quality of instruction is critical to student learning. Decades of federal policymaking have been built on the premise that good pre-service preparation is an effective route to quality teaching and, ultimately, improved educational…

Urban Teacher Residencies (UTRs) are an emerging innovation designed to embody best practices in recruitment, screening, preparation, placement, induction, and teacher leadership for urban school districts. UTRs can be a key element of urban districts' portfolio of pathways into teaching and a lynchpin of a larger strategy to strengthen the…

Research shows that teacher quality may be one of the most significant factors in student achievement. This report includes five chapters that focus on: (1) "Introduction and Executive Summary"; (2) "Coordinating K-12 and Higher Education to Support High-Quality Teacher Preparation" (e.g., coordinating teacher candidate experience in K-12 and…

The Mentor Teacher-Internship (MT-I) Program is a major development in the theory, policy, and practice of teacher education in New York State. In the first year, 1986-87, 24 projects were designed and implemented. This report is organized into five parts. Part 1 provides an introduction and overview of the evaluation study and contains…

The major purposes of this literature review were to locate and describe existing programs that assist beginning teachers, and to describe the evaluation of these programs. Of particular interest was literature in which the problems of beginning teachers were described. Literature covering the following topics is reviewed: (1) why extended teacher…

The lists presented in this volume include individuals and institutions that may serve as resources to educators developing or modifying programs to assist beginning teachers. These lists were generated by contracts made in the course of the study of induction programs for beginning teachers. The first list is of locations and directors of the…

This paper presents two propositions: (1) that extensive knowledge of subject matter is a necessary but not sufficient condition for effective teaching; and (2) that teacher education is a legitimate professional preparation which should be improved rather than circumvented. Six rationales for the validity of the above propositions, based on…

Many problems arise from inaccurate expectations for preservice teacher education and its relationship to what goes on in elementary and secondary schools. Preservice education is expected to provide schools with a continuous supply of highly qualified candidates. However, preservice teacher education exerts little proactive control over teacher…

This summary report on the Study of Induction Programs for Beginning Teachers offers insights on the findings of the study. Two kinds of programs were studied: preservice internship programs, and induction programs. A discussion is given on what the study revealed about the experiences of beginning teachers in the transition period from students…

In this first of four volumes reporting the findings of the study of induction programs for beginning teachers, the problems and issues covered by the study are discussed. A description is given of the methodology used in the study, and a series of recommendations for teacher educators and policymakers are offered. In the first chapter, the human…

This publication describes programs in the California State University (CSU) system that support public school improvements in five areas: public school diversity, curriculum improvement, teacher diversification, teacher education, and leadership. An introduction notes the pressing urgency of school improvement and describes the need for business…

This Alabama edition of the National Council on Teacher Quality's (NCTQ's) 2009 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" is the third annual look at state policies impacting the teaching profession. It is hoped that this report will help focus attention on areas where state policymakers can make changes that will have a positive impact on teacher…

This summary of the development and implementation of the Study of Induction Programs for Beginning Teachers includes descriptions of the methods used to obtain data as well as recommendations and conclusions drawn from the study. Critical questions in the investigation were: (1) What are the problems of beginning teachers? (2) What kinds of…

This report describes current practice regarding requirements for teaching nationally and in North Carolina, and summarizes research comparing traditionally prepared (TP) teachers and those who enter teaching through alternative routes (ALT). These comparisons revealed that alternative programs attracted a large number of candidates, including…

This literature review examines alternative routes to teacher certification and presents alternative certification regulations and policies for 19 states. Three categories of nontraditional personnel preparation programs are noted: nontraditional recruitment programs, retraining programs, and alternative certification programs. A definition of…