This book documents six exemplary teacher preparation programs participating in school-university partnerships in an effort to examine issues of standards in teacher education. It describes how attention to standards has played out in contrasting demographic, political, and intellectual contexts. The authors reveal the realities and consequences involved in the complex process of implementing standards in varied program contexts often having to reconcile external mandates with the needs of their students and their own program values. Working in pairs, teacher educators formed critical friend research partnerships focused on assessment, inquiry, equity, diversity, and technology. Institutional partnerships discussed include: The University of Louisville with University of Southern Maine; Teachers College, Columbia University with University of California, Santa Barbara; and University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee with Wheelock College.

This volume addresses persistent issues in the preservice and continuing education of teachers. Attention is focused upon perspectives on teacher education that differ significantly from those that have characterized views of this field in the past. Among developments that provide the current context for teacher education are the movement for standards, the emphasis upon inquiry in the classroom, increased expectations for teachers' participation in curriculum development, constructivism and the cognitive revolution, and professional development schools. These and other matters receive the attention of a distinguished group of scholars and practitioners in the field.