Connecting High-Quality Educators with Urban Students

Book excerpt: Recent national attention has focused on the benefits of school-university-community partnerships to increase the pipeline of highly qualified teachers for urban students, but little has been published about large-scale partnerships. This book about one urban teacher education partnership is written for those who want to plan, direct, work in, or study a full-scale, pre-K-12 school, university, and community partnership. The book offers a comprehensive approach to urban teacher education. Topics cover (1) recruitment; (2) a large-scale Professional Development School model (e.g. 400 candidates per semester) and an early childhood residency graduate program (20 candidates per cohort)—two partnership programs embracing all university preservice teacher candidates; (3) induction support for new teachers, and finally, (4) professional development for candidates and experienced, in-service teachers. Each of the six chapters show how the separate parts of teacher education can be interrelated to build a stronger, more cohesive, integrated system to serve teachers and ultimately Pre-K-12 students. A review and reflection on a single teacher education partnership, this easy-to-use book, is clearly documented by interviews, five-year evaluation outcomes, and a retrospective analysis that embraces sociocultural themes.