The State of Teacher Education

It is not meaningful to address educational reform in the United States without considering the relationship among our children, their teachers and those who currently education both groups. The demographic disparity between those who administer and teach in our schools and the learners they serve can lead to a sociocultural discontinuity that makes difficult the task of transmitting knowledge in a meaningful way (Farkas 1990; Whelage 1992).

Current demographic trends indicate that the ethnic and racial make-up of the student population is continuing to change at a rapid rate. Hodgkinson (1993) has noted that states experiencing the fastest growth - Illinois, Florida, New York, Texas and California - have the highest percentages of "minority" youth. In California, for example, 53% of the high school students graduates will be non-white by 1995. In addition, an increasing number of students enter school speaking a language other than English. Some larger urban school districts - for example Los Angeles and New York City - have documented over 100 different home languages spoken by their student populations. Zeichner (1990) noted that even predominantly white class, such as Madison, Wisconsin, and Albany, New York, are struggling with inequitable academic achievement. These trends are expected to continue. The most recent statistics indicate that by the year 2035, 50 percent of the under-eighteen population will be children of color (Tamayo-Lott 1993).

Poverty has a devastating impact on our children, and it is evident in rural as well as urban areas. More children are coming to school from homeless shelters, hungry and in poor health, than at any time in recent history. Hodgkinson (1993) reported that in 1993, "more than 23% of America's children were living below the poverty line and thus were at risk of failing to fulfill their physical and mental promise." The connection between poverty and racial/ethnic status continues to exacerbate the problem of equitable educational outcomes as it impacts differently on white and non-white groups. For example, the poverty rate among Native Americans - approximately four times that for white Americans - is an important factor affecting the educational opportunities of Native American children (Atencio et al. 1992). More African American children live in poverty (42.2%) than children from any other group in the United States. In the decade of 1979-89, poverty increased 123% for Asian/Pacific American children and 69+% for Latino children (Children's Defense Fund 1992); among Latinos, Mexican Americans experienced the highest growth-rate of poverty (Quality Education for Minorities Project 1990). Children form single parent families, particularly those with female heads of households, are more likely to live in poverty while young females' life-time earning prospects remain lower than young males' U.S. Census Bureau 1993). These factors pose formidable barriers for educators who are unfamiliar with the dynamic and inter-related nature of race, ethnicity, gender, social class and their manifestations in educational settings.

Demographic data on the current and future teaching force do not mirror the changes taking place in the student population. While racial and ethnic teacher concentrations may vary with locality, statistics indicate that approximately 90% of the current teaching population is white (NEA 1986; Falluzzo and Arends 1989; Grant and Secada 1990). Zimmer (1990) reported that these trends will remain relatively stable for the foreseeable future while others suggest that by the year 2000, the number of teachers of color in the nation's teaching force will drop to less than five percent (Weiss 1986).

In 1991, there were 2,314,079 students, grades K-12, identified as Limited English Proficient (LEP) in U.S. schools - up almost a million from 1984. Spanish was the primary language of 73% of LEP students; 77% were eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches. A total of 364,485 had LEP students in their classes. Ninety -three percent of the teachers of LEP students were white; 42% spoke a non-English language that was the native language of one or more of their LEP students; 55% had taken college courses or had received inservice training related to teaching LEP students within the past five years. Approximately two-thirds had never taken a college or university course in cultural differences and implications for instruction, language acquisition theory and teaching English to LEP students. Less than 9% had ever taken a college/university course in teaching mathematics to LEP students (Fleischman and Hopstock 1993).

The prospect for greatly increasing diversity in teacher-candidate populations appears minimal unless specific and considerable actions are taken to train and recruit minority teachers. Sletter (1992) reports several factors that inhibit minority recruitment for teaching careers: increased opportunities for careers with greater financial rewards; culturally biased and gender biased entrance requirements (e.g., standardized tests); the high cost of obtaining a college education; and institutional practices which promote the hiring of white teachers and administrators over teachers of color. A review of the literature reveals little research documenting successful programs to recruit and retain a diverse corps of teacher candidates. Of the innovative programs that do exist, many are experimental or are funded with grant money and lack the stability of traditional teacher training programs. More promising new school-university collaborative projects currently being developed and implemented recruit teacher aides from local school districts. Flexible programs lead to certification through traditional teacher preparation institutions. Preliminary data (Joy and Bruschi 1993) suggest that this may be a successful strategy; yet the fact that these models are experimental, depend on short-term funding, and exist on the fringes of traditional teacher education models suggest that the problem of diversifying the teaching force has yet to receive the committed resources that it needs.

All signs are that hte teaching profession will remain predominately white, female, monolingual, and of rural or suburban backgrounds with little knowledge about or understanding of those who are different form themselves (O'Malley 1981; Irvine 1992; Zimpher and Ashburn 1992). Unfortunately, the statistics related to professors in education - those who will teach our teachers - offer little hope that teacher-candidates will be trained by persons who are themselves knowledgeable about diversity and classroom life in urban or rural schools.

The demographics in higher education differ significantly from those at the elementary and secondary levels in terms of gender. Approximately 94% of the education professorate is white, and only slightly more than 6% of assistant professors are persons of color. These groups contain a much higher percentage of males (approximately 70%) than is typical in K-12 education (grant, in press). Additionally, Haberman (1987) reported that more than 95% of teacher educators have had no substansive teaching experience in urban schools. It is reasonable to assume, given this data, that the current educational professorate has had little or no training in multicultural education and few interracial or intercultural experiences (Grant, in press). Similarly, training in gender-fair teaching techniques is seldom available or required.

Several studies have attempted to assess prospective teacher's knowledge about and attitudes toward student diversity and multicultural education. Research by Paine (1988) and Weinstien (1989) found that pre-service teaching candidates enter their professional course personality and attitudes of the students while ignoring contextual factors. The prospective teachers surveyed had little or no ethnocultural knowledge about groups with whom they were strength or phenomenon to be explored (Sleeter 1993). The majority of teacher candidates reported a preference for teaching in an area similar to one where they were raised. Few reported any desire to teach in urban areas or in schools populated by large numbers of poor or diverse students (Haberman 1987; Zimpher 1989). The recent research of John Goodlad (1990) confirmed these results, documenting that many prospective teachers agreed with the statement that some children cannot learn.

Gender as a facet of diversity is receiving increased attention. Sadker and Sadker's recent book (1994) discusses a variety of differences in the treatment of girls and boys. Females do not receive the same attention from teachers that males do, are taught with gender-biased textbooks, and are not encouraged to pursue the same courses or careers as their male peers.

Teaching in Settings of Diversity

Identifying what is effective in settings of diversity is a necessary first step in considering what a relevant and effective teacher education program would be like for candidates who will teach in diverse classrooms. That subject matter knowledge plays a key role in effective teaching is conventional wisdom. A teacher who has a weal content base tends to have teaching problems, often misrepresenting content and confusing the learners (Gillette 1990, 1993). But subject matter knowledge must be combined with what Shulman (1987) has termed subject-specified pedagogical knowledge or pedagogical content knowledge. Wilson (1987) has offered the following definition of such knowledge:

Pedagogical content knowledge consists of understandings and beliefs about the range of alternatives for teaching a particular piece of subject matter to particular students in particular schools, as well as knowledge and beliefs about the ways in which students learn the content in question. The knowledge enables teachers to generate instructional representations that are justifiable on the basis of the discipline itself, on theories of teaching and learning, on knowledge of the interests and prior knowledge of the students, and on educational goals objectives.

New Directions for Teacher Preparation

Zeichner (1992) has also reviewed an extensive body of research to identify factors that have an impact on teachers' ability to connect multicultural training received as part of their own training of professional development with their classroom practice. He has identified fourteen key elements of "Teacher Education for Diversity" that merit serious consideration by Institutions of Higher Education that provide teacher training programs. Zeichner's key elements are relevant to teacher certification requirements as well, if we are to assure teachers who are adequately educated to provide diverse student populations with equitable opportunities to learn (see Figure 3).

Content-driven systemic reform efforts, such as those of the National Council for Teaching Mathematics (NCTM), offer a promising avenue to more effective education for all students. However, they should be considered as one strategy in a system of multiple interventions that are needed if the intended outcomes are to be achieved. Currently, no definitive evidence as to the character, quality or outcomes of implementation efforts in content-driven reform exists. Developing comprehensive curricular reforms without proven results or sufficient knowledge of the complex variables that affect success would be folly. Zeichner emphasizes the importance of a multiple strategy approach. Only four of his fourteen points are directly connected to effective teachers' content knowledge base; five require content plus experimental involvement and five require field experiences.

Clearly, content alone provides an insufficient knowledge base for teachers as they attempt to rectify current gender inequities and to educate racially, ethnically and linguistically diverse groups of children. Chinn and Benne (1976) concluded that rational-empiracal information (content) is insufficient to elicit change. They argue:

Changes in patterns of action or practice are, therefore, changes, not alone in the rational informational equipment of ment, but at the personal level, in habits and values as well and, at the sociocultural level, changes are alterations in normative structures and in institutionalized role and relationship, as well as in cognitive and perceptual orientations

In addition, recent reviews of research on multicultural education (Grant and Secada 1990; Grant and Tate, in press) point out that programs that purport to provide a multicultural education for teachers are usually unsuccessful unless they include four critical components:

1. Specific content on multicultural education;

2. Education courses (methods, curriculum, educational psychology) that are infused with multicultural applications (e.g., examples, course readings);

3. Field experiences in schools populated with diverse students;

4. Course work and experiences that require that require teachers to examine their own life history and education via autobiographical analysis.

Conclusions