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experience and student teaching) are identified by teachers feeling ill-prepared by their
preservice programs of study, especially regarding the understanding and teaching of students
from diverse populations (Darling-Hammond, 2006a). Teachers exasperated by increasing
demands to meet the learning needs of all students, feel a loss of self-efficacy, and find it
motivating to quit.
Teachers’ perceptions of their professional preparation elucidate recurring themes
regarding diversity, including struggles with teaching students with disabilities, English language
learners (ELLs), and students who live in poverty. In a survey conducted by the National Center
for Education Statistics (NCES; USDE, 2008) only 32% of in-service educators felt they were
adequately prepared to teach the different types of students in their classrooms. Data collected in
1998 and 2000 (NCES; USDE, 2008) also indicated an 8% increase in the number of educators
who felt under-prepared to teach students with disabilities, growing from 71% to 79%,
respectively.
The design of teacher preparation influences the experiences of early career teachers
(Zeichner, Melnick, & Gomez, 1996). Outcome differences are identified between universities
holding on to “structural and conceptual fragmentation of traditional undergraduate teacher
education programs” and universities upgrading programs with features of “tight coherence and
integration among courses and between course work and clinical work” (Darling-Hammond,
2006a, p. 7). Preservice education is informed through teacher educators’ dispositions toward,
expertise in, and experience with diverse student populations (Guo, Arthur, & Lund, 2009).
Some teacher educators spend little time incorporating diversity curricula in coursework for
many of the same reasons K-12 teachers historically struggle in meeting the needs of students
from diverse populations. Teacher educators, like their K-12 protégées, are a homogenous
society. As an older generation, many attended schools with less diversity and at a time when
deficit views of difference were common. Their own preservice education included little, if any,
discussion of diversity and their career in the K-12 setting may have served fewer students
identified as diverse.
Research on preparation that improves teacher retention and student achievement
identifies improving coursework and increasing time and quality of clinical experiences to better
prepare teacher candidates who are ready to meet the needs of all students (Darling-Hammond,
2006b; West & Hudson, 2010). Those who have accepted the challenge of restructuring teacher
education to increase teacher and student outcomes show results that “produce novice teachers
who are able, from their first days in the classroom, to practice like many seasoned veterans,
productively organizing classrooms that teach challenging content to very diverse learners with
levels of skill many teachers never attain” (Darling-Hammond, 2006b, p. 7).
Transforming traditional coursework to effectively address diversity is known to increase
teacher retention and improve student achievement; yet, such change has not kept up with the
rapid growth of diversity in today’s schools (Darling-Hammond, 2000b). One survey course in
special education was added to undergraduate requirements at many colleges of education
(COEs) in the 1970s when inclusion of students with disabilities was first being realized. This
single course may have been adequate for future teachers 40 years ago, but is surely not enough
for today’s inclusive classrooms (Smith, Polloway, Patton, & Dowdy, 2008).