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1 Introduction
Pages 9-20

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From page 9...
... Is there high-quality research to support current methods of preparing teachers or to guide improvements? COMMITTEE TASK AND REPORT In response to a mandate from Congress for an objective and comprehensive synthesis of the available evidence on key questions about teacher preparation that could be used as the basis for future policy making, the 
From page 10...
... We interpreted this charge as focusing on public school teachers both because they are the objects of public policy and because the majority of the research on teacher quality and teacher preparation also focuses on them. We recognize the vital contribution that private school teachers make, but more than 85 percent of students in the United States attend public schools.1 Broadly viewed, our charge was to review the scientific evidence that pertains to teacher preparation and to consider the data collection that will best support improvements to this critical element of the public education system.
From page 11...
... In order to probe more deeply into several of our study questions, we commissioned three additional analyses, two on teacher preparation programs and career pathways in two jurisdictions and one related to data collection. Grossman and colleagues (2008)
From page 12...
... ONE OF THE LARgEST OCCuPATIONS IN THE uNITED STATES The 3.6 million elementary and secondary public school teachers working in the United States in 2006 made up more than 8.5 percent of all college-educated workers aged 25 to 64 years old (National Center for Education Statistics, http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d08/tables/dt08_064. asp [November 2009]
From page 13...
... Other sources provide demographic data about teacher education students and the current public school teaching work force: these data were summarized by Zumwalt and Craig (2005)
From page 14...
... Teachers' socioeconomic status, as measured by their parents' educational attainment, has edged up, as has that of teacher education students, but this trend may simply reflect the increase in overall educational attainment in the United States over time. Data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics (1999)
From page 15...
... A brief look at the historical roots of teacher preparation in the United States sheds some light on its current nature and structure. Formal teacher training began with the establishment of normal schools during the mid19th century.
From page 16...
... The NBPTS has been operating for more than 20 years, but the Carnegie Task Force's recommendations for teacher education -- like those Conant had made earlier -- have not been systematically pursued (National Research Council, 2008a)
From page 17...
... With respect to the nation's fast-changing demographics, the word "diversity" may have lost some of its impact through overuse, but its implications for public education are very concrete. As the United States has experienced significant increases in immigration in recent decades, the number of young people for whom English is not their first language has grown, as has the geographic dispersion of those young people.
From page 18...
... In 2000, 20 percent of all children under 18 (11 million of the 58 million school-age children) in the United States had parents who were recent immigrants (Capps et al., 2005)
From page 19...
... . In the 2006-2007 school year, 6.7 million children, approximately 9 percent of the population aged 3 to 21 in the United States, were receiving educational services as required by IDEA, and these students comprised approximately 11.5 percent of students enrolled in prekindergarten through 12th grade (National Research Council, 2004; see http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.
From page 20...
... . Although states and districts vary in their criteria for diagnosing disabilities and in the specific policies through which they implement the IDEA requirements, it is clear that teachers face far different challenges than they did prior to IDEA and that many teachers are responsible for students with a wide range of disabilities.


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