Teacher education, as a profession, advances when a set of “taken-for-granted” ideas that shape the field are crystallized and enacted. These ideas are communicated as truths and frame the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of effective P-12 teaching. It is important, however, we do not become too comfortable with the familiar ways of operationalizing the field, but as policymakers, practitioners, and researchers, we continue to problematize the taken-for-granted teacher education dogmas so discussions across differences (i.e., terminology, language, sensemaking, etc.) can occur. This needs to happen because “ . . . education is a conversation aimed at truth . . . The object is not agreement but communication . . . ” (Schwab, 1953, p. 9). Matsko et al. (this issue) point to recurring debates on traditional versus alternative versus residency teacher preparation programs (TPPs); each program type possesses certain characteristics. However, these traits are not universal. For example, in the 337 years since Frances’ first École Normale prepared teachers, teacher preparation did not involve an academic degree. Yet today, a non-degree TPP in the United States is an “alternative” program. Researchers need to be mindful of differences locally, nationally, and internationally, especially where TPP clinical experiences are concerned. The U.S. definition of a traditional TPP is an undergraduate (UG) or post-baccalaureate (PB) degreebased program. The definition is agnostic to clinical experience type (student teaching, residency, internship). UG teacher candidates cannot be teachers-of-record, so their traditional TPP must culminate in a non-teacher-of-record clinical experience (student teaching or residency). PB teacher candidates at traditional and alternative TPPs have the option of being teachers-of-record and therefore student teaching, residencies, and internships are all options (Henry et al., 2014; Matsko et al., this issue) found important differences in clinical experiences and prerequisites across program types. Rec Educationalists should be mindful of legal, practical, and lay differences in terminology. Also, teacher residencies, which trace to America’s normal school past, call for close relationships between schools and universities that largely have not existed for some time. University and school district partners must overcome what has been described as the “two-world” trap (Anagnostopoulos et al., 2007), especially when policies are top-down. Despite lack of clarity, universities and schools are joined-at-the-hip (Chu, 2021). On one hand, non-compliance could put teacher educators out of their jobs. On the other hand, teacher attrition exacerbates districts’ staffing crises. On its own, teacher attrition, a commonplace theme in the literature, continues to be a mind-boggling challenge both nationally and internationally (Craig, 2017). It is disruptive to student learning (Ronfeldt et al., 2013), expensive (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2014), and varies across contexts. In Texas, new teachers prepared by UG traditional TPPs are more likely to remain in the classroom than PB teachers prepared by alternative TPPs, but the ethnicity of the new teacher and the type of initial school employment matter. Teachers of color are most likely to remain in the classroom after accounting for TPP differences (Van Overschelde & Wiggins, 2019) and teachers employed initially by public “charter” schools are less likely to remain in the profession than teachers employed in “traditional” public schools (Guthery & Bailes, 2022). Goldhaber et al. (this issue) found other factors correlated with new teacher attrition in Washington schools. For instance, the effectiveness of the cooperating teacher was not associated with teacher persistence (c.f., CAEP Standard 2.2), but matching school type (i.e., elementary) and student characteristics between the student teaching school and the initial employment school were associated with greater teacher persistence. These results offer meaningful factors for EPPs placing student teachers and principals hiring new teachers. Another taken-for-granted idea in teacher education is what constitutes effective teaching, who is the effective teacher candidate, and how to account for both (Tatto et al., 2016; Van Overschelde, 2022). Can the word, effective, be used without conjuring up the behaviorist paradigm 1089790 JTEXXX10.1177/00224871221089790Journal of Teacher EducationCraig et al. editorial2022

Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to ensure the equitable distribution of out-of-field teachers. Using over 180 million student-course-teacher records from Texas between 2011-12 and 2017-18, we found out-of-field teaching rates have increased dramatically since ESSA became law. We also found vast inequities in which teachers are assigned to teach out-of-field and dramatic differences in student out-of-field course-taking rates across demographic characteristics. The strongest predictors of teachers teaching out-of-field is that they work in a charter school or completed alternative certification programs. Black teachers and students are most likely to teach and take courses out-of-field, and Latinx teachers and students are least likely. Policy implications are considered given negative impacts of out-of-field teaching on student academic achievement.

A comparison of population and employment projections shows the gap between teacher supply and demand growing through 2025. Alternative certification programs (ACPs) were created to increase teacher production, but research on who selects ACPs versus traditional preparation programs (TPPs) shows mixed results as does research on new teacher attrition. Analyzing employment and preparation data for over 225,000 new teachers (56% ACP), we found male and teachers of color were more likely to be ACP prepared. Using survival analysis, we found TPP teachers were significantly more likely to remain in the classroom than ACP teachers. We also found that teachers of color were more likely to stay teaching after accounting for preparation differences, and Latinx teachers from traditional preparation programs were most likely to stay teaching.

A large gap exists between the percentage of teachers and of students who are Hispanic. To better understand this gap, we compared Hispanic and White preservice teachers' motivations for becoming teachers and perceptions of the teaching profession during their application to a large traditional teacher certification program at a Hispanic-serving institution. Analysis of 1,600 survey responses revealed many statistically significant differences, and many of the differences across ethnicity varied by the type of teacher certification sought. Suggestions for how teacher preparation programs can design and market their programs to recruit more Hispanic preservice teachers are explored.

Recent concerns about the psychoeducational needs of children and adolescents have drawn increased attention to the importance of psychological services in public schools. In particular, media reports on issues related to school safety, special education supports, and appropriate service delivery for culturally and linguistically diverse students have underscored the demand for school psychologists. The need for school psychologists to address these critical concerns is compounded by the fact that, for many years, there have been documented shortages of school psychologists. For the most part, reporting on shortages has been either anecdotal or based on surveys. In this article, we identify trends in graduate preparation and workforce data to better understand current and future needs by analyzing public data on graduate students, public-school employees, and workforce records from Texas. Following this analysis, we provide recommendations for policy and practice.

A recent state-wide curricular shift in developmental course offerings mandated that the exit levels of developmental reading and writing coursework in every public institution of higher education in Texas be merged into one accelerated and integrated developmental reading and writing course. This project examined the effects of that curricular shift on community college students by evaluating the efficacy of the mandate on the students' pass/fail rates on their first college-level reading or writing-intensive course. Four models with differing levels of sampling precision and analysis were tested. Results varied based on the level of precision of each model. The most precise model, which employed a quasi-experimental methodology involving propensity score matching, demonstrated significantly greater outcomes for students who took non-accelerated separate developmental reading and writing courses than for matched students who took an accelerated and integrated course.

Recently, policymakers have called for increased grade point average (GPA) requirements and many state education agencies are implementing "highly selective criteria" for teacher preparation program admission. These changes attempt to increase the quality of future teachers despite the inconclusive research base for such practices. Using a large sample, we examine who would be denied admission to a teacher preparation program and to the teaching profession if admission criterion had been increased. We perform descriptive and inferential analyses to determine if particular groups of students were negatively impacted by increased GPA criteria. Findings suggest that not only would it reduce the number of high quality teachers, but students of color and male students would be negatively impacted to a much greater degree. Moreover, increasing the GPA admission criterion to 2.75 resulted in no improvements in six outcomes examined, and increasing it to 3.0 resulted in mixed outcomes. Thus, policies to increase GPA for admittance to teacher preparation programs have the potential to dramatically reduce the number of future teachers with no consistent positive impact on the profession and, instead, would likely hurt the very students these policies are designed to help.

The university’s teacher preparation program has implemented and continually refined a professional development school program, with extended university-school relationships in its middle-level certification program. This program offers dialogue, targeted learning activities, and intensive field-based experiences to help ease preservice teachers from student identity to teacher identity. Preservice teachers spend several semesters working under the guidance of practicing middle-level teachers before assuming control of their own classrooms, mitigating potential reality shock and improving middle-level teacher retention. This program has led to higher than average 5-year retention rates for middle-level teachers. Recommendations for other teacher preparation programs are included.

The authors investigated predictor variables for the Counselor Preparation Comprehensive Examination (CPCE) to examine whether academic variables, demographic variables, and test version were associated with graduate counseling students' CPCE scores. Multiple regression analyses revealed all 3 variables were statistically significant predictors of CPCE total scores and subtest scores.

Project Lead the Way (PLTW) is a hands-on, project-based engineering curriculum for high school and middle school students, which has quadrupled annual enrollment in Texas in five years to over 23,000 students. The diversity of students participating has also increased dramatically. Using six years of longitudinally-linked student data, the academic outcomes of cohorts of PLTW students were compared to matched cohorts of non-PLTW students. Matching was based on Grade 8 state math assessment scores and demographic and program participation variables. Findings show that PLTW students scored significantly higher on the state’s Grade 11 mathematics assessment, a higher percentage met the college-ready criterion, a higher percentage enrolled in Texas higher education institutions, and the non-college-bound PLTW students earned higher wages.

The robust effects of knowledge on memory for domain-relevant information reported in previous research have largely been attributed to improved organizational processing. The present research proposes the distinctiveness theory of skilled memory, which states that knowledge improves memory not only through improved organizational processing but also through more effective processing of differences between items in the context of the similarity defined by organization. Individuals with either high or low knowledge about NFL football were presented with lists containing items from the target domain (NFL football) or a control domain (cooking). Individuals either performed a category sorting task, a pleasantness rating task, or both. Results on a surprise free recall test later showed knowledge effects on memory (high knowledge individuals had greater recall than low knowledge individuals for football items but not for cooking items). Secondary measures established that the knowledge effect on memory was due not only to better organizational processing but also to more effective item-specific processing.

A version of the PRAM methodology that permits an analytical evaluation of judgment of learning (JOL) accuracy was used for the first time to assess absolute accuracy (specifically, calibration). Results are reported from a new experiment in which Swahili-English translation equivalents were studied, followed sometime later (either immediately, ∼1 min, or ∼8 min) by pre-JOL recall and JOLs, and followed eventually by final recall. The calibration accuracy for predicting final recall decreased as the delay between study and JOL increased, with the decrease being most dramatic when only items that were recalled at the time of the JOL were considered. In contrast, relative accuracy (as measured by an overall gamma) improved as the delay between study and JOL increased. Participants appear insensitive to the combined effects of the recallability of the items at the time of the JOLs and of the delay between JOL and testing on the accuracy of JOLs.

Two experiments investigated the effect of visual blank space on reading by varying the amount of interletter and interline blank space in prose passages. Increasing interletter blank spacing slowed the reading process overall, presumably because it disrupted the unitization of words and word identification, but it also improved the identification of the letters within words. By contrast, increasing interline blank spacing sped up the reading process overall, while also improving the identification of words and the letters within words, presumably because the extra spacing reduced the amount of visual information that was processed during reading. The latter finding supports the conclusion that information from surrounding lines of single-spaced text may interfere with reading.

Two experiments investigated the effect of visual blank space on reading by varying the amount of interletter and interline blank space in prose passages. Increasing interletter blank spacing slowed the reading process overall, presumably because it disrupted the unitization of words and word identification, but it also improved the identification of the letters within words. By contrast, increasing interline blank spacing sped up the reading process overall, while also improving the identification of words and the letters within words, presumably because the extra spacing reduced the amount of visual information that was processed during reading. The latter finding supports the conclusion that information from surrounding lines of single-spaced text may interfere with reading.

Research on skilled memory has focused on organizational processes to the exclusion of item-specific processes, although theories of skilled memory do acknowledge the importance of both kinds of processes. Using the isolation methodology, we presented lists of American football team names to participants who had either a high or a low level of knowledge about American football. An isolation effect (greater recall of the target in the isolate list than in a homogeneous control list) was observed only with high-knowledge participants. When standard lists were used, an isolation effect was observed with both groups. These findings empirically validate the importance of both organizational and item-specific processing as the basis of distinctive processing underlying skilled memory performance.

The Battig and Montague (1969) category norms have been an invaluable tool for researchers in many fields, with a recent literature search revealing their use in over 1600 projects published in more than 200 different journals. Since 1969, numerous changes have occurred culturally that warrant the collection of new normative data. For instance, in the mid-1960s, the waltz was a popular dance, and undergraduates wore rubbers on their feet. To meet the need for updated norms, we report an expanded version of the Battig and Montague (1969) norms, based on responses from three different sites varying in geographical locations within the United States. The norms were expanded to include new categories (e.g., ad hoc categories) and new measures, most notably latencies for the generated responses. Analyses demonstrated high levels of geographical stability across the new sites, with lower and more variable levels of generational stability between the Battig and Montague norms and the current norms.