An Innovative Strategy Supports Student Teachers in Urban Secondary Schools

Abstract

ost of the urban teacher education programs that existed during the past thirty-five years are now defunct. Even those considered very successful-such as the Urban Teacher Corps, the Cooperative Urban Teacher Education (CUTE) programs of the Mid-Continent Regional Education Lab, Indiana University's Urban Project, and the West Dallas Teacher Education Program at the University of North Texas-no longer exist. Because of the demise of urban teacher training programs, current teacher education programs must serve as a preparation for urban teachers. However, according to the Association of Teacher Educators, generic programs are inadequate as a preparation for urban teachers (Buttery, Haberman, and Houston 1990). Martin Haberman (1987), who has researched and written extensively on the preparation of teachers for urban schools and effective urban teaching, considers them (traditional, campus-based teacher education programs) a waste of time. According to Haberman (1987), the average career of an urban teacher is between three and five years, and in every five-year period approximately one-half of the urban teaching force leaves the profession. As a result, there is a teacher shortage in the nation's 120 largest urban school districts (Haberman 1987). The lack of specific urban teacher education programs and the inadequacy of current teacher education programs as a preparation for urban teachers have contributed to the high rate of urban teacher attrition. Because of an urban teacher shortage, many newly certified teachers, who want to teach immediately after becoming licensed, will begin their careers in large, inner-city schools. Many of those novice teachers, who lack adequate urban teacher preparation, may be overwhelmed by the problems associated with urban teaching. The problems they will face, such as students' antagonism toward school, their lack of respect for themselves and their teachers, poor student discipline, high rates of student absenteeism, stu-