Using their experiences as teacher educators as a starting point, the authors identify and describe the most salient manifestations of state policy in their work with prospective urban teachers. Analysis of six vignettes demonstrates how experiences of teacher educators might be interpreted to support commonly accepted tenets of systemic reform: for instance, alignment of institutional mandates. However, another reading of the narratives demonstrates that systemic reform as it has become operationalized adversely affects urban teacher preparation in several important areas because the centrality of teachers 'thinking and beliefs is ignored, and power differentials among education 's constituencies have been reinforced.
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