When Susan Moore Johnson began studying the experiences of new teachers, she wasn't motivated by some mandate about highly qualified professionals or the latest data on turnover. Instead, the Harvard University professor was inspired by watching her own daughter, Erika, grapple with whether to apply to a traditional teacher education program in the late 1990s. The route her daughter took to the classroom--a Teach for America assignment in an elementary school following a summer training program--stood in such sharp contrast to the manner in which Johnson had entered the teaching field in the late '60s. This article explores the variety of ways that today's teachers differ from those who started a generation ago.