The Urban Teacher Education Consortium is a national consortium of teacher educators who are dedicated to development strong preparation programs for cities across the country. Members of the consortium have just released a position paper on the training of teachers, releasing it at a time of “encroaching dehumanization and disempowerment of both teachers and their students.”

The paper blasts some alternative teacher prep programs, including (though not by name) Teach For America, which gives newly graduated college students five weeks of summer training and then places them into high-poverty schools.

Here ‘s the position paper:

Urban Teacher Education Consortium Position Paper

The Urban Teacher Education Consortium (UTEC) is a group of teacher educators representing institutions and programs around the country who are committed to preparing teachers capable of providing the quality of education students in cities across the U.S. deserve and to which they are consistently denied access. For the past seven years, representatives from these programs, listed below, have been meeting regularly to share successes and to pose problems of practice in an ongoing effort to improve the quality of what our teacher candidates can enable their students to learn. Although our programs vary in design and structure, we share common beliefs in the strengths and potentials of urban students, their families and communities, about preparing their students to be active citizens in a democratic society and about the nature of teaching and learning which we will delineate briefly in this document.

Why do we feel compelled to make a statement at this moment in the country’s educational history? These are trying times for everyone involved in education, and this is particularly the case for those who work in urban schools and communities. Systems of accountability based on questionable testing measures have become the primary basis for judging both teachers and students, and in the process have drained from the work of teaching and learning both the sheer complexity and the joy of the enterprise of education, so dependent on the cumulative development of knowledge, skills and practices, not the least of which is the building of trusting relationships between teacher and student. It is time to push back against the prevailing narrative which links success with test score improvement and replace it with a vision of growing empathetic, whole human beings, true to their cultural identities and capable of speaking truth to power.

And we must push back against the misguided and dangerous belief that a new generation of teachers can emerge spontaneously, fully formed without the long-term guidance and support of experienced professionals whose skills have been forged in the crucible of day to day classroom trials and triumphs. In our field of teacher education, this lack of recognition of the complexity of the work has spawned quick fix programs that run from online teacher certification to 5-6 week crash-course introductions to teaching for those who hold a bachelor’s degree in any field. These programs threaten to produce what we might call “classroom mechanics,” rather than reflective, committed professional practitioners whose work is grounded in deep understanding of pedagogy, human development and urban communities and who are therefore capable of adapting constructively to the kinds of challenges which teachers face daily in urban schools. We must promote the recognition of teachers as respected professionals, as they are honored in countries that are universally admired for the quality of education they offer their children.

We, the participants in the Urban Teacher Education Consortium, believe that becoming an urban teacher is an ongoing process which begins when students enter our program and continues throughout the length of their teaching careers. This journey involves an exploration of their identity as teachers, the development of a repertoire of understandings and practice aimed at providing students with powerful and engaging instruction, and a growing awareness of the capacities, strengths, and “funds of knowledge,” students bring to the classroom from their communities and families.

We do not expect our students to be fully formed practitioners when they first enter their own classrooms, but we do expect them to be highly competent new teachers who:

Serve as advocates for their students within and outside the schoolhouse walls, including challenging the poverty and racism which threaten to undo much of their courageous work.

It should be apparent to anyone who reads this list that these characteristics, understandings, and practices can only develop with considerable time and deep preparation –including substantive opportunities to develop and become familiar with the research underlying them. This kind of learning of the profession of teaching cannot happen in a matter of weeks or even a few months. We believe that programs based on the premise that teaching is a profession informed by these research-based practices and a well-developed knowledge base are the best contexts for preparing teachers for urban settings. In addition, these programs provide a range of closely mentored classroom experiences that provide novice teachers with the time and support they need to learn this complex profession.

What should be evident to anyone reading this list is that they represent the qualities that teachers in any context or community should aspire to. We see them as particularly salient for urban teachers precisely because they are so conspicuous in their absence in most urban schools. Students, by their own testimony, find so much of what happens devoid of any meaning or relevance in their lives; all too often it disrespects and devalues them and their communities. This focus on deficits engenders a kind of internalized oppression which undermines students’ sense of their own capabilities and agency.

It is the responsibility of urban teacher educators and their students to interrupt this narrative of failure and inadequacy and substitute in its place a counter narrative of hope and capacity. This is the work that we and our programs are committed to as we seek ways to stand against the encroaching dehumanization and disempowerment of both teachers and their students and to prepare a new generation of teachers committed to creating classrooms for an engaged and active democracy.

Kenneth Zeichner – University of Washington

Esther Ohito – Teachers’ College, Columbia University

Lori Chajet – CUNY Graduate Center and Brooklyn College

Robert Lee – Illinois State University

Heather Johnson – College of the Holy Cross

Ann Burns Thomas – SUNY Cortland

Dale Ray – University of Chicago

Joseph Featherstone – Michigan State University (ret.)

William Kennedy – University of Chicago

Thomas DelPrete – Clark University

Victoria Trinder – University of Illinois at Chicago

Karen Hammerness – UTEC Coordinating Committee

Helen Featherstone – Michigan State University (ret.)

Jennifer Robinson – Montclair State University

Bernadette Anand – Banks Street College of Education

Cecilia Traugh – Long Island University, Brooklyn

Klaudia Rivera – Long Island University, Brooklyn

Sheila Resseger – Coalition to Defend Public Education (Rhode Island)

Sandy Grande – Connecticut College

Lisa Gonsalves –UMass Boston

Amy Millikan – San Francisco Teacher Residency

Jonathan Osler – San Francisco Teacher Residency

Les Blatt – Clark University (ret.)

Sharon Feiman-Nemser – Brandeis University

Andre Perry – Davenport University

Kathy Schultz – Mills College

Anna Richert – Mills College

Marvin Hoffman – University of Chicago (ret.)

Kavita Kapadia Matsko – University of Chicago

Kate Bielaczyc – Clark University

Eric De Meulenaere – Clark University

Ricci Hall – Clark University partner principal, Worcester Schools

Sarah Michaels – Clark University

Patti Padilla – Clark University partner principal, Worcester Schools

Jie Park – Clark University

Heather Roberts – Clark University

Nastasia Lawton-Sticklor – Clark University

Thea Abu-El Haj – Rutgers University, New Brunswick

Dirck Roosevelt – Teachers College, Columbia University

Beth Rubin – Rutgers University, New Brunswick