If the middle school is to adequately meet the needs of the particular age group it serves, a new teacher education coalition of school districts, colleges or universities, teacher organizations, and state and federal agencies is needed. Each member of the coalition would have its own role: teacher organizations to assist with recruitment, advisement, and establishment of ethical standards; universities to assist with certification and to provide leadership and resources for inservice education, research, program design and evaluation, and materials development; school districts to be responsible for preservice and inservice teacher education; state and federal agencies to support and facilitate. This approach could provide a clinical setting for teacher education which would (1) serve children in the schools, (2) function to teach preservice teachers and experienced teachers in residence for retraining, and (3) facilitate research based on direct observation and on controlled development of materials. In addition, middle school teachers must be selected for their ability to deal with preadolescent youth; this will involve differentiated preparation as well as differentiated staff functions. Any of four plans for staff development might be used, although school district-university cooperation or a regional consortium might be the more effective two. (SG)