new face of teaching in the 21st century: Are we ready for the challenge?, The

Are we as a nation ready to face a future void of talented teachers? Are we ready to accept the fact that thousands of potential teachers are daily being lured away to other fields that offer financial, status, and material rewards that the teaching profession cannot as yet promise? Most estimates conclude that about 2 million new teachers will be needed to replace the large numbers of teachers who will be retiring in the coming decade. Who will educate the increasing number of students who will be flooding the nation's schoolhouse doors in the next few years?

The teachers of the near future must be prepared to teach the students of "Generation Y"that media-saturated, Internet-savvy, brand-conscious generation of youth born during the "baby bulge" demographers locate between 1979 and 1994. Within the coming decade, fully a third of these young people will come from language- or racial/ethnic-minority families. By 2050, they will represent at least 50% of the U.S. public school classroom population. Substantial numbers of them will come from impoverished backgrounds and families with high rates of no or low school attendance. Too many, especially those who are African American and Hispanic, will be underprepared in mathematics and science. Many millions will be "latchkey children," or children between the ages of 5 and 14 who spend considerable amounts of time home alone after school.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (1998), nearly one in five college graduates who began teaching during the 1993-94 school year left the field within three years to pursue other, more lucrative careers. Worse, many of those who left were among the best and brightest of novice teachers. The projected teacher shortfalls predicted for the coming decade further exacerbate the already critical shortage of teachers in urban school districts and those in mathematics, science, bilingual, and special education. These trends, combined with the declining enrollments of students, and particularly minority students, in schools, colleges, and departments of teacher education nationwide, have numerous long-term, detrimental effects.

If we are not ready to accept the dismal fate these trends portend, what will be the mission of teacher educators in the 21st century? Quite simply-that is, simply stated rather than simply done-it will be to recruit, educate, and retain the best and the brightest teachers and equip them to meet the needs of the nation's changing face. How can those of us who are committed to and vested in furthering teaching as a profession counteract this reality? How can we help reduce teaching's soaring attrition rates and retain the best and brightest in our nation's teaching pool?

As the struggle to attract quality candidates to teaching continues, the questioning becomes more specific. Where will these much-sought-after teachers be found? And once found, how will we prepare them for the challenges they will face in light of the nation's burgeoning diversity? How can more people of color, and especially males of color, be recruited into the teaching profession? How should tomorrow's teachers be prepared to address pedagogical knowledge generally as well as student deficiencies in specific subjectmatter areas? What kinds of professional development will enable in-service teachers to stay current in their subject-matter areas and master today's global technology? How can preservice and in-service teachers alike come to understand and appreciate children, youth, and colleagues from diverse racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and geographic backgrounds?

It is precisely these kinds of probing questions that cause considerable angst among those of us charged with preparing future teachers. The nation's colleges and universities face the added challenge of elevating the perception of the teaching profession, both its value and its attractiveness, to the public generally and to the millions of postsecondary students considering career choices in particular. Teacher preparation and professional development programs must prepare teachers to teach the new curriculum content, understand the alignment of new assessments to the curriculum, and function effectively in a climate of educational reform. Teachers, today and tomorrow, need to understand, appreciate and respect the cultural diversity that defines and will continue to define the student populations of our nation. These children's futures depend on the conditions of the schools they attend, the quality of the curriculum in the schools, and, most importantly, the quality of teaching that occurs in their classrooms. The time to meet this challenge proactively is coming swiftly to a close. If the United States is to continue as a leader in the world of education, we must begin now to craft viable solutions.

This Yearbook issue of the Journal of Negro Education brings together several respected experts in the teacher education field to address vital issues related to the teacher workforce of the future. We are especially pleased to include in this issue the 20th annual Charles H. Thompson lecture presentation, "The Education of Children Whose Nightmares Come Both Day and Night," delivered by Dr. Jacqueline Jordan Irvine of Emory University. Dr. Irvine's lecture was especially relevant to the Yearbook theme, for she described important characteristics of teachers who make a difference in reversing the cycle of despair and school failure among urban minority children and youth. Thus, we saw it as an excellent lead for this issue's invited articles. The other authors whose works we have assembled here represent the educational "gurus" of the teacher training and professional development field, and their articles provide a 360-degree analysis of teacher recruitment, education, and retention from the classroom to the policy office. They bring to this dialogue their collective experience as a university president, as deans and professors, as project directors, and as school district principals and central office administrators. They participate in policymaking, standard setting, curricular development, assessment planning, and instruction. They coordinate recruitment activities, devise and evaluate professional development programs, and track the implementation of educational policy directives. In these pages, they freely and candidly share their views about the current state of affairs and offer their visions for the future.

All of these authors agree that education is key to the development of responsible, productive citizens and therefore inextricably linked to national growth and international stature. They each affirm that education is a primary factor in the nation's competitive edge and position as an economic and political powerhouse in an increasingly globalized society. The model initiatives, programs, and projects they describe for attracting and retaining more minorities to the field of teaching-particularly African Americans-are, for the most part, partnerships that bring together universities and colleges with one or more schools or school districts. The methods they promote to overcome the shortage of quality teachers are both traditional and nontraditional, but all have been evaluated and refined in diverse cultural and geographic settings. Their proposals further offer researchbased and time-tested strategies for increasing the effectiveness of teaching and learning at all levels of the education continuum. The cumulative goal of all these efforts is to supply local school districts with a cadre of new teachers who are not only racially and ethically diverse but also qualified to meet the challenges of tomorrow's high-tech and high-stakes classrooms.

Though some of the answers to the myriad questions raised earlier may be found within these pages, there is no simple panacea for the complex challenges before us. Teachers, along with administrators, counselors, other school personnel, policymakers, families, and communities must work together to create in every school a vision that nurtures students and challenges each one to achieve at his or her highest intellectual capacity. The complexities of increasingly diverse classrooms, new and expanded teacher roles, and changing curricular standards will require that tomorrow's new teachers rethink and relearn many aspects of their preservice training. For those teachers currently in the classroom, supportive in-service training, collaboration among school-based staff, greater involvement in decision-making and leadership roles, and a supportive work environment will become increasingly important factors for their ongoing learning and professional growth. This issue does not shy away from addressing these challenges and the enormous complexities they pose. Rather, it serves as vital fuel to strengthen those of us in the teaching profession as we engage in further discussion, debate, and action to resolve them.

National Center for Education Statistics. (1998). The condition of education,, 1998. Washington, DC: Author.

Joan Wilson Brown and Gerunds B. Hughes,

Howard University School of Education

Paul L. Vance,

Superintendent, District of Columbia Public Schools

Copyright Howard University Summer 1999
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