Section archive - Trends in Teacher Education

This paper analyses the trajectories into teacher education of a group of child minders who are studying to become pre-school teachers. The specific focus is what impact their prior experiences and learning from pre-school have on their trajectories. The paper also examine how these experiences and learning are recognized in the first year of teacher education.The results show that prior experiences and learning are given implicit and indirect recognition.

In this article, the authors examine a group of beginning secondary English teachers who form a cohort in an MA/credential program organized to teach them how to teach in high-poverty, urban settings. The authors follow a cohort of 26 novice teachers through their 5th year after receiving their credential. The authors reconsider the categories traditionally used to determine whether teachers stay or leave and offer ways to track those who stay or leave high-poverty, urban schools. The authors conclude with a discussion of factors that seem to contribute to teachers staying in high-poverty, urban schools and educational settings.

The author is a high school teacher who reflects on the impact of Obama's election on the students in her high school classroom. She found that the election enthusiasm highlighted for her the ways that schooling under NCLB has constrained both educators and students. Obama's election may bring hope to learners of all ages, especially to many teachers who had been beaten down by eight years of NCLB. However, the author advises skepticism toward the changes education secretary Arne Duncan might bring. The author calls on teachers, families, and unions to collaborate in demanding the freedom to nurture true learning.

In this article, the author concludes her work heading Obama’s education policy transition team. She describes President Obama’s commitment to making the education of every child a collective responsibility and reviews central elements of the new administration’s plans for education. She reflects on the importance of suggested policy changes, particularly focusing on the importance of legislation to improve teacher capacity and retention.