Partnering to Prepare Urban Teachers

Contents : Francine P. Peterman: Preface: A Call to Activism, A Call to Hope - Sharon P. Robinson: Introduction - Victoria Chou/Steven Tozer: What's Urban Got to Do with it? The Meanings of Urban in Urban Teacher Preparation and Development - Francine P. Peterman/Kristy C. Sweigard: Defining Standards that Respond to the Urban Context: A Call to Activism - Peter C. Murrell, Jr.: Toward Social Justice in Urban Education: A Model of Collaborative Cultural Inquiry in Urban Schools - Dennis Shirley: Promoting Participatory Democracy Through Community Organizing - Mark G. Storz/Karen R. Nestor: It's All About Relationships: Urban Middle Schools Students Speak out on Effective Schooling Practices - Cris Mayo/Maria Alburquerque Candela/Eugene Matusov/Mark Smith: Families and Schools Apart: University Experience to Assist Latino/a Parents' Activism - Afra Hersi/Dennis Shirley: From Radical Visions to Messy Realities: Complexities in the Preparation of Urban Teacher Educators - Francine P. Peterman/R. D. Nordgren: Facing the Dilemmas Within Creating and Supporting Urban Teacher Education with a Social Justice Agenda - Kristien Marquez-Zenkov: Teaching What Matters in the City: Novice Urban Educators and Community-Relevant Standards - Brian Yusko: New Teacher Induction and Professional Development Through a Video Technology Mentoring Program - Karen Hunter Quartz/Brad Olsen/Jeff Duncan-Andrade: The Fragility of Urban Teaching: A Longitudinal Study of Career Development and Activism - James Fraser: Conclusion: Situating Teacher Education in Social Activism.

The Editor: Francine P. Peterman is a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Foundations at Cleveland State University and has served as an urban teacher educator for seventeen years since attaining her Ph.D. at the University of Arizona. Peterman writes about urban teaching and teacher preparation, standards for urban teacher education, inquiry-based teaching and learning, and the invention of cultures and practices that support renewal that is socially just. Her roots in teaching in Miami, Florida for twelve years and partnering with local Cleveland schools keep her grounded in her work in schools, where she prepares educators for the complexities and demands of urban teaching.

"As you begin to experience the rich intellectual content of this important volume, be prepared for a compelling, hopeful, and sobering encounter with some of the most challenging circumstances imaginable on the part of teacher education to meet the needs of learners. You will be presented with honest reports of comprehensive and determined efforts to understand and respond to the realities of urban schools. You will read of programs that address the complexity of urban settings that influences teacher preparation and retention and, ultimately, student achievement. These experiences present in powerful terms one of the most significant challenges to the professional efficacy of the teacher education enterprise that exists today. That challenge is one that teacher educators cannot - must not - ignore. This book could not be more timely, nor its call to action more critical... The contributors make one point very clear: urban teaching is not missionary work but work that is possible only when it is grounded in a personal and professional commitment to the mission of social justice." (Excerpt from the Introduction by Sharon P. Robinson)
"As someone who has become increasingly suspicious, indeed downright weary, of calls to activism that do not give the reader any tools for the activism, I found Partnering to Prepare Urban Teachers a refreshing change. For those of us whose professional lives are immersed in the preparation of urban teachers, this book is an invaluable guide. It is both a call to action and a repository of examples of good curriculum and best practices. And, for anyone who cares about the teachers in the city schools of the twenty-first century - be they teacher educator, teacher, parent, policy-maker, or concerned citizen - the passionate yet practical call to activism embedded here is essential reading." (Excerpt from the Conclusion by James Fraser)