Our schools will need to hire more than two million teachers in the next decade for classrooms that already face shortages of qualified teachers, particularly in high-poverty communities. Many districts hire teachers on substandard licenses. New teachers often enter classrooms underprepared for the challenges they will face and are given insufficient support in their first years. For teachers in the classrooms, opportunities to strengthen their skills and knowledge remain largely disjointed, unfocused, and unconnected to classroom practice. (Riley, 2000, p. iii).
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