Growing Our Own Teachers

1
Growing Our Own Teachers
The Need and the BenefitsKey Characteristics of
Effective Programs

• Donald R. Moore, Ed.D.
• Designs for Change

2
Definition of Target Participants

• Programs aimed at preparing one or more of the
  following groups
• to become teachers
• Parents active in education (for example, general
  education parents, special education parents,
  bilingual education parents).
• Community residents active in education.
• Paraprofessionals (for example, teacher
  assistants or aides, school-community
  representatives, security guards, school clerks,
  bus drivers).
• Focus On
• Preparing these individuals to become teachers in
  the specific schools (or in the types of schools)
  where they have a long history of involvement.
• Preparing teachers for hard-to-staff schools and
  hard-to-staff teacher specialties.
• Increasing racial and ethnic diversity.

3
Characteristics of High-Achieving Inner City
Schools

• High-achieving inner city schools carry out
  specific practices in five
• interrelated areas (Five Essential Supports for
  Student Learning)
• Effective School Leadership (from principal,
  teachers, school site council)
• School Environment Supports Learning (discipline,
  student social development, physical environment
  and materials)
• Professional Collaboration and Development
• School Partnerships with Parents and Community
• Quality Instruction

4

• The school is a human system. All Five
  Essential Supports work together.
• High levels of trust and collaboration among all
  adults (principal, teachers, school site council,
  parents, community) enable the Five Essential
  Supports to mesh together.
• The quality of instruction is obviously critical,
  and competent teachers are critical to providing
  quality instruction.
• However, quality instruction rests on a strong
  foundation in the other four essential supports.
  For example
• Quality instruction is impossible if a weak
  principal cant recruit good teachers.
• If teachers dont stay at the school, it is
  impossible to create a cohesive instructional
  program.
• Unless a high level of trust and collaboration
  exists among school staff and between the school
  staff and parents, new teachers are prone to
  leave quickly (especially in low-income schools).

5
Chicago Has a Chronic Difficulty in Recruiting
Enough Minimally-Qualified Teachers Each Year

• Year after year, Chicago reports a high
  percentage of the staff positions statewide that
  are filled by unqualified teachers.
• As of November of this year, Chicago had about
  1,100 unfilled teacher positions.
• A substantial number of additional positions were
  staffed by teachers who had a teaching
  credential, but not the right credential for
  their position (for example, regular teacher
  certification, but not special education teacher
  certification).

6
Chicago Has a Substantial and Growing Teacher
Turnover Rate for New Teachers

• Among teachers hired in 1993-94, 17 were gone
  after two years.
• Among teachers hired in 2001-2002, 32 were gone
  after two years.
• If trends continue, roughly 50 of teachers hired
  in 2001-2002 will be gone in five years.

7
Deeply-Rooted Job-Seeking Trends Among Teachers

• 61 of teachers take their first teaching job
  within 15 miles of their hometown.
• 85 of teachers take their first teaching job
  within 40 miles of their hometown.
• New teachers generally accept teaching jobs in
  communities with the same demographic composition
  as their hometown.
• Teachers who begin their teaching career in inner
  city schools show a strong pattern of migrating
  to more middle class schools and communities.
• Compared with earlier generations of teachers,
  the commitment of current beginning teachers to
  remain in teaching at all is substantially more
  tentative.

8
High Economic and Educational Costs of Teacher
Turnover for Chicagos Schools

• High turnover generates an unending need to seek
  to large numbers of new teachers.
• High dollar costs involved in seeking and
  orienting new teachers (staff time and other
  costs).
• Diminished effectiveness of the individual
  teachers classroom instruction, since teachers
  dont reach maximum effectiveness until they have
  been on the job for about eight years.
• A Novice Culture, in which a constantly
  changing school staff dont have enough
  experience to help each other.
• Or a Veteran Culture, in which a core of
  veteran teachers keep to themselves and receive
  favored assignments. Thus, they make working
  conditions unattractive to new teachers.
• Professional development and assistance for
  teachers has limited benefit, since many teachers
  who receive this help are soon gone.
• Lack of collaboration and trust among teachers
  leads to hunkering down among veteran teachers
  and rapid departure of new teachers.

9
Some Reasons Reported by Teachers for Leaving
Urban Schools

• Lack of parent support.
• Poor working conditions (large classes, lack of
  books and supplies, etc.).
• Weak support from the schools administrators.
• Student behavior problems.
• Disengaged students.
• Lack of support in mastering the teaching
  process.
• Pressure of high stakes testing.
• Low pay or low rate of salary increase over time.
• More desirable working conditions or pay in
  another school or school district.
• Decided to leave the teaching profession.

10
Some Conditions that Cause Teachers to Stay in
Inner City Schools

• Rachel Carson Elementary School as an example.
• Low teacher turnover reduces number of teachers
  to be recruited and allows the school to be
  choosy.
• School selects teachers carefully, to identify
  teachers who are committed to the school and who
  fit in with the schools philosophy and
  instructional strategy.
• School administrators provide strong leadership
  in identifying and supporting new teachers.
• High level of trust and collaboration among
  teachers. Teacher teams are critical to the
  schools operation.
• Close ties with parents and community and strong
  parent-community support.
• Exemplary student behavior and engagement.
• Careful program for orienting and supporting new
  teachers (accessible mentor readily available).
• Effectiveness in retaining teachers involves the
  effective organization of the school
• as a human system. A specific program like
  mentoring is not enough in isolation.

11
Why Grow Our Own Teachers?
Sources of Evidence

• Case study analysis of nine exemplary college
  programs that prepare urban adults to become
  teachers, human service professionals, and/or
  civic leaders on education issues.
• Evidence about programs that prepare
  paraprofessionals to become teachers
  (particularly Breaking the Class Ceiling).
• Evidence about practices for effective higher
  education for adults.

12
A Sizable Number of Active Parents, Active
Community Members, and Paraprofessionals Bring
the Following Key Assets as Future Teachers

• Substantial history of direct experience with
  inner city students, families, schools,
  classrooms, and communities. No culture shock
  when they begin teaching.
• An understanding of the strengths, as well as the
  needs, of urban schools and communities. They
  can become a bridge between schools and
  communities.
• An extremely high level of commitment and
  demonstrated success in completing a teacher
  education program, becoming a certified teacher,
  and teaching in urban schools for the long term.
• A commitment to work with the most
  difficult-to-educate students (for example, the
  parent of a child with a disability who wants to
  become a special education teacher).

13

• Performance in teacher education programs rated
  slightly higher than the average teacher
  education student.
• Nine times more racially and culturally diverse
  than teacher education graduates nationally.
  Grow Our Own participants are 77 individuals of
  color, while teacher education graduates
  nationally are 8 individuals of color. Source
  Breaking the Class Ceiling.
• Securing a teaching position typically means a
  major increase in salary and benefits for a Grow
  Our Own graduate, compared with the individuals
  prior earning. Thus, Growing Our Own teachers
  becomes an important economic development
  strategy.

14
Compelling Economic and Educational Advantages

• At each stage in the process of becoming a
  teacher and then remaining in teaching,
  persistence has obvious economic and educational
  advantages for society. The more potential
  teacher candidates and teachers drop out at each
  stage in the process, the more the investment in
  preparing and supporting them is lost. The steps
  that require analysis are
• College entrance up to admission to a teacher
  education program.
• Enrollment in a teacher education program up to
  college graduation.
• Completing certification to become a teacher.
• Beginning to teach in a hard-to-staff school or
  hard-to-staff teaching specialty.
• Persisting over a period of years in a
  hard-to-staff school or hard-to-staff teaching
  specialty.

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• More research is needed about the percentages of
  Grow Our Own candidates who complete each of
  these stages, as compared with the average
  college student. A good deal of research is in
  progress.
• Furthermore, research is needed on the
  effectiveness of Grow Our Own graduates as
  teachers, although there is compelling anecdotal
  evidence about their effectiveness.
• However, the statistical evidence available is
  compelling. Consider just one part of the
  preparation process analyzed in Breaking the
  Class Ceiling
• In large teacher education programs, only 30 of
  enrolled students typically graduate. Of these
  graduates, only 40 become teachers. Thus, for
  each 1,000 candidates who entered these teacher
  preparation programs, only 120 (12) will become
  teachers.
• In a study of approximately 10,000 participants
  in 122 Grow Our Own programs, 89 of teacher
  education majors graduated and completed their
  teaching major, and 93 of these program
  participants entered a teaching career.

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• Thus for each 1,000 candidates who entered these
  Grow Our Own teacher education programs, 830
  (83) actually became teachers.
• This roughly eight-fold difference represents an
  enormously productive return on investment in the
  education of Grow Our Own teacher candidates.
  Even though more research is needed, it is clear
  that Grow Our Own teacher candidates who enter
  teacher education programs are many times more
  likely to actually become teachers than the
  typical teacher education major.
• Another major critical question is whether a high
  percentage of Grow Our Own teacher graduates will
  remain in inner city schools for the long term.
  Anecdotal reports from Grow Our Own graduates
  strongly indicate that they will. (Remember,
  Chicago is attempting to improve a crisis
  situation where 32 of new teachers are gone
  after two years.)
• One piece of evidence supporting the likelihood
  that Grow Our Own teachers will remain in urban
  teaching for the long term is the fact that most
  teachers in the United States want to teach in
  the type of community in which they grew up.
  This evidence dovetails with many statements by
  Grow Our Own candidates and graduates about their
  desire to teach in their own community and to
  serve hard-to-educate students.

17
Key Characteristics of Effective Programs

• The three sources of evidence described earlier
  provide strong evidence about the characteristics
  of Grow Our Own programs that are highly likely
  to lead to
• Mastery of key competencies for becoming an
  effective teacher.
• Successful completion of a teacher education
  program.
• At one extreme, Grow Our Own programs have been
  established that make minimal adjustments in
  their typical teacher education program. They
  recruit the target students, but expect them to
  sink-or-swim in the traditional teacher education
  program.
• At the other extreme, some programs (such as
  Project Nueva Generación) incorporate most or all
  of the key characteristics of effectiveness.

18

• Based on program survey results reported in
  Breaking the Class Ceiling, for example
• Only 28 of Grow Our Own programs reported using
  innovative teaching methods.
• Only 42 of Grow Our Own programs reported using
  a cohort model.
• The extremely high rate of program completion for
  Grow Our Own teachers reflects their strong
  determination to succeed, whether or not their
  learning experience embodies many of the Key
  Characteristics of Effectiveness.
• Program completion and student competency can be
  further increased if most of the Key
  Characteristics of Effectiveness summarized below
  are actually incorporated into a Grow Our Own
  program.

19
Classes at Convenient Times and Locations

• Classes meet at convenient times (evenings, on
  weekends, in concentrated two-week or summer
  sessions) to enable students to work part-time or
  full-time in a supervised work experience.
• The ability of students to continue to earn a
  living while completing the program is a critical
  factor in making their participation financially
  viable.

Financial Support

• The program assembles student aid packages that
  draw on all available sources of standard
  financial support.
• The program obtains additional needed support
  (for example, in the form of loan forgiveness for
  teaching in an urban school).

20
Maximizing Academic Credit for Past Experience

• The program helps students gather evidence about
  past college coursework that meets course
  requirements for entering and completing college
  and for completing a major in teaching.
• The program uses a recognized framework (such as
  the framework developed by the Center for Adult
  and Experiential Learning) to give maximum
  appropriate credit for past life experience (for
  example, experience as a paraprofessional is
  counted towards meeting classroom observation
  requirements).

21
In-Depth Admissions Assessment

• Many programs require the completion of a high
  school degree or its equivalent, a minimum
  grade-point average for past college work, and
  minimum test scores.
• However, the most effective programs evaluate the
  candidates past involvement as a paraeducator or
  active parent or community member in-depth.
  Demonstrated accomplishments and commitment are
  considered a decisive indicator of whether a
  candidate will complete the program successfully.

22
Cohort Structure

• Students participate in the program as part of a
  cohort of 15-25 fellow students.
• In some cohort structures, students take each
  course together, one course at a time. In other
  cohort structures, students begin the program
  together, but may move at different rates over
  time, and thus move into different courses.
• In still another version of the cohort structure,
  students may be taking a variety of courses from
  different instructors along with students who
  are not part of a Grow Our Own program, but the
  programs students meet regularly to provide each
  other with academic and social support.

23
Strong Connection with Target Schools and
Communities

• The program has a strong connection with the
  target schools and communities from which the
  programs students come.
• This connection exists either because a core
  group of faculty in the university has built such
  a connection or because the university
  collaborates with a parent organization,
  community organization, teachers union, some
  other intermediary organization that plays this
  role.
• Through this connection, the program is aided in,
  for example, student recruitment, social
  supports for students, student tutoring, and
  linking course content to school and community
  issues.

24
Coherent Targeted Course of Study

• Whether the program is offered by a single
  institution of higher education or through a
  collaboration among two or more institutions, the
  courses offered are all focused on meeting the
  requirements for becoming a credentialed teacher.
  
• Students do not lose time and money taking
  courses that will not count towards becoming a
  teacher or retaking courses as a teacher
  education major that they have taken in their
  early college years.

25
Rigorous General Education CoursesCourses are
Tailored to Issues in Particular Schools and
Communities

• If students have not already completed general
  education course requirements, the programs
  initial courses focus on the rigorous mastery of
  the required courses that are central to a
  liberal arts education.
• The curriculum not only teaches the mastery of
  liberal arts requirements, but tailors the
  programs courses to issues that the teacher will
  confront in urban schools and communities (for
  example, social science courses focus partly on
  understanding the social organization of urban
  schools, communities, and families).

26
Coherent Curriculum for Individual Courses

• The curriculum for each course is carefully
  specified in many effective programs, with some
  flexibility for individual instructors to
  customize the courses specifics.
• The courses have an overall coherence that
  focuses on a set of learning competencies for the
  whole program.
• The student is not simply put through a standard
  course-by- course curriculum
• that is not coordinated among individual
  instructors.

27
Learning Methods Tailored to Learning
Competencies and Specific Course Objectives

• The program departs from the traditional lecture
  approach. Teaching and
• learning methods may include, for example
• Group study, problem-solving, and projects as
  part of a learning team.
• Active analysis of case study examples focused on
  specific organizations and young people.
• Use of computers to gather information and to
  prepare attractive presentations of student work.
• Role-playing and videotaping to master new skills
  (such as teaching and group counseling).

28
Students Are Treated as Active Learners Who Must
Reflect on their Own Learning

• Adult students are challenged to identify
  long-term learning objectives for themselves, and
  to actively assess their own progress as they
  participate in the program. One method used by
  effective programs is to require students to
  create and regularly analyze a portfolio of their
  work.

29
Teamwork and Commitment Among Program Staff

• Instructors who are committed to the programs
  goals volunteer to teach specific courses. They
  are willing to make individual courses part of a
  coherent overall program, as described above.
• Instructors receive preparation for teaching the
  particular types of students enrolled in the
  program and for teaching the programs
  curriculum.
• For both full-time and part-time instructors, the
  program emphasizes that everyone is responsible
  for the students success through helping them
  with coursework, skill development, and social
  support. As the head of one successful program
  said, No one ever says around here, Thats not
  my job.

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Emphasis on Student Skill Development

• The program focuses on helping students master
  critical skills for reading, math, writing,
  speaking, listening, collaborating, and using
  computers and other technology essential for
  their future careers. Put differently, the
  programs students master the new basic skills
  needed for almost all careers with a future in
  the changing economy.
• The programs primary approach to strengthening
  students basic skills is integrated into
  on-going course activities (developmental). It
  is not primarily remedial (that is, students
  are not drilled endlessly to teach them basic
  skills, in isolation from meaningful coursework).
• Skill development is coordinated by an Academic
  Services Coordinator. However, all staff who
  work with students share responsibility for
  providing this skill development support.
• Based on consistent advice from the exemplary
  programs, the program places a special emphasis
  on assisting students to improve students
  writing.

31
Emphasis on Social Supports for Students

• The program places a strong emphasis on providing
  social supports for students. A Counseling or
  Student Services Coordinator has a lead
  responsibility for providing counseling support
  to students who are experiencing problems in
  meeting the multiple demands of succeeding in the
  program, working, and raising a family.
• However, all staff members also take
  responsibility for providing this social support.
• Further, students are helped and encouraged to
  support fellow members who are members of their
  cohort.
• The intermediary partner can play an important
  role in providing social supports for students.

32
Supervised Work Experiences and Focus on
Practical Applications

• Students are typically required to participate in
  a part-time or full-time supervised work
  experiences (for example, as a school
  paraprofessional) relevant to the programs goals
  and to the students desired career objectives.
• Each student has a mentor at their work site.
  Students document their work experience and
  reflect on it with their on-site mentor, the
  programs Career Services Coordinator, other
  faculty, and other students. The Career Services
  Coordinator maintains regular communication with
  the mentors at the students work sites.
• Although the program teaches demanding liberal
  arts and professional preparation courses,
  courses consistently focus on practical
  applications for students current and future
  work situations. Courses combine academic rigor
  with practical utility.

33
Long-Term Support for Program Graduates

• The program views the education provided to its
  students as an initial investment in developing
  effective teachers who will remain in
  hard-to-staff schools and teaching positions for
  the long term.
• Thus, the program provides long-term assistance
  and networking opportunities, as graduates
  pursue
• Employment in paraprofessional and teaching
  positions during the program and after its
  completion.
• Further education to earn advanced degrees.
• Positions of teacher and community leadership.

34
On-Going Program Evaluation and Accurate
Tracking of Program Graduates

• A careful independent evaluation of the programs
  implementation and impact is carried out to
  document and strengthen the program. This
  evaluation assists the programs staff in
  refining their efforts as they proceed and
  documents the programs impact for external
  audiences.
• The program documents students career paths,
  including subsequent education, jobs, and civic
  participation.

35
Special Funding Supplements Support from the
Universitys Core Budget

• Universities that carry out Grow Our Own programs
  drawing primarily on soft money have a poor
  record of continuing these programs long-term.
• Programs that survive long-term use special
  funding to supplement a fair share of the dollars
  that they normally spend on a teacher education
  candidate. Programs that last implement an
  appropriate business plan from the beginning that
  doesnt assume permanent special funding.