Policy, Practice, and Politics in Teacher Education

Marilyn Cochran-Smith holds the John E. Cawthorne Endowed Chair in Teacher Education for Urban Schools at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education, where she directs the Doctoral Program in Curriculum and Instruction. Dr. Cochran-Smith earned her Ph.D. in Language and Education from the University of Pennsylvania in 1982 where she was a tenured faculty member at the Graduate School of Education until going to Boston College in 1996. An active participant in the national and international teacher education communities, Dr. Cochran-Smith has long been a member of AACTE committees and groups. From 2000-2006, she was the editor of AACTE’s journal, The Journal of Teacher Education, along with a team of nine Lynch School of Education associate editors.  The journal, which is published five times a year, addresses issues of research, practice and policy in teacher education. From 1998-2006, Dr. Cochran-Smith was also a member of AACTE’s Publications Committee. In 2004, Dr. Cochran-Smith won AACTE’s highest honor, the “Pomeroy Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Teacher Education.” In 1999, she was awarded AACTE’s “Margaret Lindsay Award for Distinguished Research in Teaching and Teacher Education,” and in 1995 her book, Inside/Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge (co-authored with Susan Lytle), won AACTE’s “Annual Award for Excellence in Professional Writing in Teaching and Teacher Education.” Dr. Cochran-Smith was President of the American Educational Research Association for 2004-05, serving on the Executive Board and Council in 1998-2000 and again in 2003-2006. She is the Co-Chair of AERA′s National Panel on Research and Teacher Education and Co-editor (with Ken Zeichner) of Studying Teacher Education: The Report of the AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Education (Erlbaum, 2005). Dr. Cochran-Smith was also a member of the National Academy of Education’s Committee on Teacher Education. She is Co-Editor of the Teachers College Press series on Practitioner Inquiry as well as Co-Editor of the Third Handbook of Research on Teacher Education, which is currently in preparation. In addition Dr. Cochran-Smith is on the advisory board for many national projects and committees, including the New York City Pathways Project, the Ohio Teacher Quality Project, and the UCLA/Center X Urban Teacher Educators Network. Dr. Cochran-Smith is a member of the Executive Committee and the Leadership Team for Boston College’s Teachers for a New Era project, funded primarily by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and Chair of the Evidence Team for this project. She is also a member of the Research Coordinating Council for the TNE national cross-site group. Dr. Cochran-Smith has written many award-winning articles and books on diversity in teaching and teacher education and on teacher education policy and practice, teacher research, teacher learning, and the growth and development of knowledge for teaching. Walking the Road: Race, Diversity and Social Justice in Teacher Education was published by Teachers College Press (2004). Many of her recent articles, book chapters, and books focus on teacher preparation research and policy, teaching quality, and competing agendas for education reform. Dr. Cochran-Smith’s AERA Presidential Address, “The New Teacher Education: For Better or For Worse?” appeared in the October 2005 issue of Educational Researcher. Dr. Cochran-Smith is a frequent keynote speaker nationally and internationally, recently at the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs Project Director’s Conference (Washington), the OISE/UT Conference on Teacher Education for the Schools We Need (Toronto), the North-South Conference on Teacher Education (Dublin), and the International Conference on the Education of Teachers (Hong Kong). In 2004, Dr. Cochran-Smith won the “Carl Grant Research Award for Outstanding Research on Multicultural Education,” and in 2005, she was the recipient of the first National Impact Award from the New York State Association of Teacher Educators and the New York Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

"Marilyn Cochran-Smith is one of the strongest voices in teacher education today. By weighing the evidence, challenging orthodoxy, and analyzing the policies, she has given teacher education a firm footing in the scholarly canon. Her leadership is vital to the field’s viability."

• Foreword by John I. GoodladPreface and AcknowledgmentsPrologue: Policy, Practice, and Politics: Taking Stock of the Field1 Teacher Education at the Turn of the Century2 Gambling on the Future3 The Questions That Drive Reform4 Learning to Teach Against the (New) Grain5 Multicultural Education: Solution or Problem for American Schools?6 Higher Standards for Prospective Teachers: What’s Missing From the Discourse?7 Reforming Teacher Education: Competing Agendas8 Desperately Seeking Solutions9 Teacher Education, Ideology, and Napoleon10 What’s Preparation Got to Do With It?11 What a Difference a Definition Makes: Highly Qualified Teachers, Scientific Research, and Teacher Education12 The Research Base for Teacher Education: Metaphors We Live (And Die?) By13 Reporting on Teacher Quality: The Politics of Politics14 The Unforgiving Complexity of Teaching: Avoiding Simplicity in the Age of Accountability15 Teaching Quality Matters16 Assessing Assessment in Teacher Education17 Teacher Education’s Bermuda Triangle: Dichotomy, Mythology, and Amnesia18 Sometimes It’s Not About The Money: Teaching and Heart19 Taking Stock in 2004: Teacher Education in Dangerous Times20 Ask a Different Question, Get a Different Answer: The Research Base for Teacher Education21 The Report of the Teaching Commission: What’s Really at Risk?22 The Problem of Teacher Education23 Stayers, Leavers, Lovers, and Dreamers: Insights About Teacher Retention24 Taking Stock in 2005: Getting Beyond the Horse Race25 No Child Left Behind: 3 Years and Counting26 The Politics of Teacher Education and the Curse of Complexity27 Studying Teacher Education: What We Know and Need to Know28 Teacher Education and the Outcomes Trap29 Taking Stock in 2006: Evidence, Evidence EverywhereEpilogue: The Future of Teacher Education: Promises and PitfallsIndexAbout the Author