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Alternative routes to teacher preparation are clearly here to stay. A growing research literature on non-traditional pathways suggests the complexity of the task ahead. This report offers new teachers the opportunity to tell their own stories in their own words. In "Alternative Certification and Alternative Pathways: A Personal Take on a Core Policy Dilemma," Jon Snyder sets the scene with an insightful and provocative essay that identifies the key issues from a public policy perspective. While he has serious reservations about many alternative programs, he also has been instrumental in developing the Partnership for Quality, a collaboration between schools in the South Bronx and Bank Street College. This alternative program only allows candidates to become teachers of record after establishing the capacity to work successfully with children. In addition, candidates participate in on-going mentoring with experienced teachers in schools where they and the entire staff receive support from the College. The essays which follow Snyder document the experiences of four novice teachers. These essays are: (1) "I Hope This Will Be a Good Year for Me..." A Career-Changer Stumbles on the Fast Track to Teaching (Miranda Barry); (2) Collaborations for Success: Teachers, Families, and Funders Working Together (Sarah Samuels); (3) Getting Off the Fast Track for the Long Haul: Becoming a Teacher (Ariel Sacks); and (4) Learning a Tough Lesson: My Life as a NYC Teaching Fellow (Allen Ellenzweig). Five themes weave their way through these personal essays and remind us of the spectrum of fundamental issues that frame life in schools. These themes are: collaboration and isolation; educational vision and pedagogical skills; theory and practice; leadership and silence; and resources and barren landscapes. While offering distressing pictures of some alternative route programs, these essays also shed light on the elements that make schools work and allow new teachers to learn their craft: collaboration among peers and between professionals and families; vision informed by appropriate practices; theory offering insight into the lived realities of students and teachers; leadership that creates reliable, safe environments; rich resources. [Preface by Jonathan G. Silin.]

Since the fall semester of 1998, a committee of university faculty and local school system administrators has collaborated to design an alternative teacher certification program to meet the teacher shortage needs of the Hamilton County, Tennessee, schools. Areas of identified shortages include science, mathematics, and foreign languages at the middle and high school levels and special education at all levels. The collaboration was successful with the selection of the first cohort group of 12 candidates for alternative certification in 1999. The papers in this collection were presented at a symposium focusing on alternative teacher certification. Taken together, these papers form a case study that tells an ethnographic story while describing each stage of the collaboration. The papers are: (1) "The Vision: Establishment of Need of the Alternative Certification Program" (Mary P. Tanner and Thomas E. Bibler); (2) "The Action: Planning & Development of the Alternative Certification Program" (Cynthia M. Gettys and Kathleen S. Puckett); (3) "The Teaching Team: Planning & Teaming" (Jane T. Brower, Cynthia M. Gettys, and Lisa Goode); (4) "The Collaboration: Partnership & Implementation of the Alternative Certification Program" (Joyce E. Hardaway and Lonita D. Davidson); (5) "The Goal: Urban Impact" (Bonnie Warren-Kring); and (6) "The Evaluation: Cohort I Participants Evaluate the Alternative Certification Program" (Kristen Childs, Debbie Donohoo, and Callievene Stewart). (SLD)

This collection of papers describes pre-collegiate and collegiate programs that are models for successful minority teacher recruitment and preparation. The papers include: "Correcting the Minority Teacher Shortage: Framing the Issue, Meeting the Challenge" (Elaine P. Witty); "Response of the Southern Education Foundation to the Minority Teacher Shortage in the South" (Nathaniel Jackson and Wiley S. Bolden); "Recruiting and Retaining Minorities in Teacher Education: Implementing the Value-Added Approach" (Saundra N. Shorter and Zoe W. Locklear); "Measures of Persistence and Success: A Profile of Paraeducators, Attributes and Behaviors that Supported Completion of Teacher Licensure in the North Carolina Consortium" (Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran, Barbara L. Johnson, Barbara Perry-Sheldon, and Leila Vickers); "The Summer Scholars Program: Historically Black Colleges/Universities and Leading Graduate Schools of Education Collaborating to Increase the Quality and Supply of African American Teachers" (A. Lin Goodwin); "Building the Minority Teacher Pipeline: The Grambling State University Experience with Precollegiate Programming in the Louisiana Consortium" (Mary Davis Minter and Deborah Gilliam); and "Where Do We Go from Here: Diversity in Teaching and School Leadership" (Leslie T. Fenwick). (SM)

This monograph presents eight cases of schools, colleges, and departments of education (SCDEs) in which faculty members are creating experiences in teacher education that are standards-based, elevate the conversation about the profession among teachers, and create more coherent wholeness in which being an educator includes membership in a distinct professional community. The papers are: "Connecting Partners in a Learning Community: "Higher Education, School Districts, and Business and Community Groups Use the National Board's Five Core Propositions to Advance the Professional Development of Experienced Teachers" (Francine M. Tompkins); "Preparing Math and Science Teachers: The NBPTS Standards and a Reflective Portfolio Process Help New Teachers Begin Their Practice Thinking Like National Board Certified Teachers" (Dan Richard Saurino); "Reforming Teacher Education: South Carolina Institutions of Higher Education and Schools Engage in Systemic Reform that Uses the NBPTS Standards and Focuses on Cultural Diversity, Technology, and Community Involvement" (Earline M. Simms); "Articulating the Teacher Development Continuum: The National Board's Standards are Used to Create a Developmental Path toward Accomplished Teaching and Enhanced Student Achievement" (Lynn Gaddis); "Creating a Culture of Accomplished Practice: Documentaries of the National Board Certified Teachers Bring Standards to Life and Foster Systematic Analysis" (Traci Bliss); "Collaborating for Teacher Development and Candidate Support: The Combined Efforts of Higher Education and an Urban School District Result in New Advanced Degree Programs and Growing Numbers of NBCTs" (Victoria Page Jaus); "Analyzing Classroom Practice: A New Certificate Program Helps Teachers Get Ready to Apply for National Board Certification" (Jean Linder); and "Advancing Teacher Knowledge: National Board Certified Teachers Play a Central Role in Helping Redesign a Master's Degree Program Focused on the National Board's Standards, Content Knowledge, and Integration of Technology" (Joan P. Isenberg). (Papers contain references.) (SM)

For its 54th annual meeting, the Association of Educators and Researchers met in Omaha, Nebraska at the Hilton Omaha. This year's conference theme was "Literacy Promises", which was also used as the title for this year's Yearbook, Volume 33. This organization has long been the home of some of the nation's most notable literacy experts. At the Omaha conference, these literacy professionals once again engaged participants in dialogue of the utmost importance through their presentations and informal conversations throughout the conference. The articles included in this volume are representative of these dialogues that can lead to transformation, possibilities, and risk. The articles included in this yearbook are: (1) Literacy Lessons for a Lifetime (Laurie Elish-Piper); (2) Literacy Promises and Making Curriculum Together (Brian Schultz); (3) Working ALER (Mary Beth Sampson); (4) "New Rules" for Literacy Learning (Nancy Padak); (5) Talk Opportunities Around Text and the Responses They Elicit from Middle Level English Language Learners (Jennifer Anne Cowgill); (6) Examining Reliability of Reading Comprehension Ratings of Fifth-Grade Students' Oral Retellings (L. Elizabeth Shirley Bernfeld); (7) Instruction and Physical Environments that Support Process Writing in Elementary Classrooms (Monica Thomas Billen, Brad Wilcox, Damon Bahr, Jill Shumway, Byran Korth, Elizabeth Yates, Timothy G. Morrison, Sue Simmerman, Stan V. Harwarad, Nancy Peterson and Linda E. Pierce); (8) Literacy Coaching Across the Content Areas: Current Context and Emerging Roles (Maryann Mraz and Elizabeth G. Sturtevant); (9) Teachers' Perceptions, Beliefs, and Attitudes about English Language Learners: The Impact of a Revised Graduate Course in Content Literacy (Wayne M. Linek, Leslie Haas and Susan Glaeser); (10) Online Class versus Face-to-Face Class: How do Undergraduate Education Students Perform? (LaVerne Raine, Mark Reid, Agnes Styker, Rhonda Clark, Luisa Frias and Susan Szabo); (11) Text Format, Text Comprehension, and Related Reader Variables (Jodi Nichols, Allison Swan Dagen and Steve Rinehart); (12) The Promise of an Alternate Perspective: Viewing "Struggling Readers" through a Socio-Cultural Research Lens (Victoria J. Risko, Doris Walker-Dalhouse and Aileen Arragones); (13) Tutoring and Mentoring: The Results of an "America Reads" Program on Struggling Readers' Motivation and Achievement (Elizabeth M. Hughes, Heather Brooker, Linda B. Gambrell and Victoria Foster); (14) Unpacking Adolescent Literacy Skills in a High-Poverty, Urban High School: A Study of Ninth-Grade Literacy Skills (David D. Paige and Theresa Magpuri-Lavell); and (15) Video Games: The Motivational Value for Literacy in English Language Learners (Leslie Haas, Wayne M. Linek, Carrie Manning and Susan Williams). Individual papers contain tables, figures, references and appendices. [For "The Thirty-Second Yearbook: A Doubled Peer Reviewed Publication of the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers", see ED514888.]

For its 53rd annual meeting, the Association of Educators and Researchers met in Charlotte, North Carolina at the Marriott Charlotte City Center. This year's conference theme was "Building Literacy Communities", which was also used as the title for this year's Yearbook, Volume 32. This organization has long been the home of some of the nation's most notable literacy experts. At the North Carolina conference, these literacy professionals once again engaged individuals in dialogue of the utmost importance through their presentations and informal conversations throughout the conference. The articles included in this volume are representative of these dialogues that can lead to transformation, possibilities, and risk. The articles included in this yearbook are: (1) Kid-Watching, Negotiating, and Podcasting: Imagining Literacy Instruction for the 21st Century (Vivian Vasquez and Jerome C. Harste); (2) What Comes Before Matters in the End! (Mario C. Alvarez and Victoria J. Risko); (3) An Investigation of Writing Instruction and Kindergarten English Learners' Acquisition of Early Reading Skills (Cindy D'On Jones); (4) Bridging Fact and Story: Using Historical Fiction in Middle School Social Studies (Daniel Allbery); (5) College Students' Strategic Reading: Examining Two Teaching Approaches for Summarization Expertise (Bettina P. Murray); (6) Listening to Teachers: Self-Efficacy and Instructional Barriers, Supports, and Needs (Sara R. Helfrich and Paul B. Jantz); (7) Increasing Accessibility to an Alternative Teacher Certification Program: Transitional Needs of Working Adults (Adriana L. Medina and Paloa Pilonieta); (8) Adaptive Teaching: A Case Study of One Third-Grade Teacher's Literacy Instruction (Seth A. Parsons); (9) Best Literacy Practices for Children of Poverty: Implications for Schools, Teachers, and Teacher Preparation Programs (Connie Briggs, J. Helen Perkins and Doris Walker-Dalhouse); (10) An Investigation of Literature Circles and Critical Literacy: Five Zones of Opportunity for High-Ability Students (Lina B. Soares); (11) Reading Demands: A Comparison of Narrative, Expository, and Popular Press Texts (Mary F. Roe, Janine Darragh, HyunGyung Lee, and Sherry Sanden); (12) Teaching Questioning with Media Texts in Middle School Language Arts (Roberta Linder); and (13) Middle School Students' Perceptions: What Teachers Can Do to Support Reading Self-Efficacy (Jeanne Swafford and Vance A. Durrington). A presidential address, "U Can't C What U Don't Know: Crossing Boundaries in Early Literacy Learning" by Mona W. Matthews, is presented. Individual papers contain tables, figures, references and appendices. [For the 2010 yearbook, see ED510148.]

Papers included in this volume include: "Leaders for Movement: An Introduction to the Professional Preparation and Development of Middle Level Teachers and Administrators" (P. Gayle Andrews and Vincent A. Anfara, Jr.); (1) "Middle Level Teacher Preparation: Status, Progress, and Challenges" (C. Kenneth McEwin, Tracy W. Smith, and Thomas S. Dickinson); (2) "When Puberty Defines Middle School Students: Challenging Secondary Education Majors' Perceptions of Middle Level Students, Schools, and Teaching" (Angela J. Lexmond); (3) "Preparing Middle Level Teachers in Field-Based Cohorts" (Micki M. Caskey); (4) "Approaching and Avoiding the Middle: Teacher Preparation in New Zealand" (C.J. Patrick Nolan, Ruth G. Kane, and Peter Lind); (5) "Professional Development and the Middle Level School: Tangled Threads" (Thomas S. Dickinson, Deborah A. Butler, and W. Michele Pittard); (6) "Effective Professional Development: What Is It?" (P. Elizabeth Pate and Katherine F. Thompson); (7) "Professional Development for Middle Grades Teachers: Does One Size Fit All?" (Nancy Flowers and Steven B. Mertens); (8) "National Board Certification as Staff Development: A Teacher's Perspective" (Timothy M. Mullen and P. Gayle Andrews); (9) "Leadership Standards or Leaving Standardization for Leadership? What Best Meets the Needs of a Middle Level Movement during Times of Severe Turbulence?" (Steven Jay Gross); (10) "Voices from the Middle: Pre-Service Preparation and Professional Development of Middle School Principals" (Vincent A. Anfara, Jr. and Kathleen M. Brown); (11) "Support for New and Experienced Middle Level Principals: A Proposed Model for Professional Development" (Vicki Nord Petzko); (12) "Developing Distributed Leadership in the Middle Grades: Lessons from School Self-Assessment" (Pritha Gopalan and Alexandra T. Weinbaum); (13) "Leadership for Results" (Ronald Williamson and Susan Galletti); (14) "Leadership Self-Efficacy: Beginning an Inquiry into the Development and Impact of Middle School Principal Leadership" (Stephen Earl Lucas); (15) "A Constructivist Approach to Developing Transformational Urban School Leaders" (Sue C. Thompson, Donna M. Davis, Loyce Caruthers, and Larry Gregg); (16) "Stranger in a Strange Land: School Culture, Theory, and Practice" (Mark T. Miles); (17) "Early Adolescent Developmental Psychology Syllabus" (T. Chris Riley-Tillman); (18)"Elementary and Middle School Curriculum" (Richard P. Lipka); (19) "Teacher Preparation, Licensure, and Recruitment" (The National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform); (20) "Guidelines for Observation and Participation in the Classroom" (P. Maureen Muser and Rosalyn Edelson); (21) "Turning Points: Some Questions to Ask" (Sally N. Clark and Donald Clark); (22) "Using Structured Interviews to Facilitate Reflection and Systematic School Improvement" (Donald C. Clark and Sally Clark); (23) "Eastern Kentucky University's Middle Grades Methods" (Dorie Combs, Melinda Wilder, Keith Kull, Sara Moore, Faye Newsome, Rodney White, and John Brown); (24) "Middle Grades Master Teacher Interview Guide" (Holly Thornton); (25) "Tomorrow's Teachers Today: A Symposium on Middle Level Teacher Preparation: Summary Session--A Professional Development Technique" (Mary Henton); (26) "Middle Level Teacher Education Questionnaire" (Paul D. Deering and Barbara DeBaryshe); and (27) "Kimo's Not-So-Excellent Day in Intermediate School: A Parable about Life in Traditional Middle Level Schools" (Paul D. Deering). (Papers contain references.) (SM)