ABSTRACT
The Teaching, Learning, and Leading With Schools and Communities (TLLSC) program aims to transform undergraduate and graduate candidates into teachers with knowledge, skills, dispositions, and field experiences to teach all students in schools, particularly urban schools. In Chicago, urban schools come in many shapes—large, small, magnet, neighborhood, public, private, charter, and faith-based. Loyola University Chicago’s School of Education (SOE) placed student teachers in Catholic schools for decades. Prior to the TLLSC redesign, placements were informal and often reflected uneven and largely imbalanced interactions between the SOE placement coordinator and selected Catholic schools. Catholic parents in the United States have been choosing a Catholic education for their children for well over 100 years. In Milwaukee, where school choice has existed for over 25 years through a voucher system, Catholic parents are six times more likely to select a Catholic school than a public school.
