Steve Tozer - stozer@uic.edu

  Professor, Policy Studies, College of Education

   : 312-413-7782

  

Steve Tozer is a Professor in Policy Studies in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. After receiving his Ph.D. in Philosophy of Education at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he remained there on faculty from 1982 to 1994, and from 1990 to 1994 was Head of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Since moving to University of Illinois-Chicago in January 1995, Dr. Tozer has become active in professional preparation reform at the state and national levels. As Chair of the Governor’s Council on Teacher Quality in Illinois, he led changes in teacher certification laws in Illinois in partnership with the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. Beginning in 1997, he led the funding and design of the first system-wide program of new teacher mentoring and induction for new teachers in Chicago Public Schools. He is currently extending that work with a funded initiative to provide intensive new teacher support in one of Chicago’s hardest-to-staff West Side neighborhoods. In partnership with Chicago Public Schools, Dr. Tozer led the design and implementation of a doctoral program in Urban Education Leadership to produce transformative leaders for low-performing urban schools.

Dr. Tozer’s research interests have focused on the significance of social context knowledge in teacher preparation programs. He is currently engaged in a two-year research study to compare performance differences of teachers prepared in alternative certification programs and those prepared in standard undergraduate and graduate programs. His work in reform of the professional preparation and development of teachers and school leaders has been funded by Joyce Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, McDougal Family Foundation, Chicago Community Trust, and the Chicago Public Education Fund, among others. In 1999 he received the Stevenson Award from the Association for Teacher Educators for leadership and dedication to the education profession. Dr. Tozer is past President of the Council for Social Foundations of Education and President-elect of the American Educational Studies Association. His book, School and Society: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, is now entering its fifth edition with McGraw Hill, and he is lead editor of The Handbook of Research in Social Foundations of Education, forthcoming in 2006 from Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.