Whitepaper on Recruitment of Teachers for High Need and High Poverty Schools

And

High Need and High Poverty Middle Level Classrooms

Northeastern Illinois University Consortium: Northeastern Illinois University, Truman and Wright City Colleges of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools and District 187 North Chicago Public Schools

Funded by the Illinois State Title II Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant for Teacher Preparation at the Middle Level (MSTQE).

The Problem

The national debates on “no child left behind” and on student achievement or the “achievement gap” have come, over the past five years, to focus on the issue of teacher quality. William Saunders, Linda Darling-Hammond, Martin Haberman, Gloria Ladson-Billings and many others, while holding diverse perspectives, agree that the quality of the teacher and the level and nature of teachers’ professional classroom practices are the most significant variables in determining the level any child and particularly racial, ethnic or language minority or poor children will learn and achieve. This argument is equally supported by the child development; child psychology and public health community in their studies of the developmental curve of academic achievement and the points of intervention to support affiliation or prevent disenfranchisement of high need students. Their work indicates that the emerging adolescent in the middle grades is at a “critical ” period in terms of the long-term attachment to and achievement in school. The research on resiliency shows the early adolescent developmental period as an opportunity or “critical period “ to establish a renewal of interest in school and education. The Turning Points Report (2000) as well as Curran, McEwin, Jackson and Dickinson among others have pointed out the need for teacher education programs that provide appropriate training that results in highly qualified and high performing teachers for the middle level. The emphasis on teacher performance in all of these professional discussions ~~. This~~ places universities and colleges who provide teacher preparation programs in a position of heightened accountability, responsibility.

The shortage of teachers with appropriate preparation and support to teach in urban and high need schools and the resulting teacher turnover rate in these schools is a national crisis. Data on the level and impact of the crisis and calls to action are detailed in reports and studies such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, “The Costs of Teacher Turnover in Acorn Neighborhood Schools in Chicago (2002); Council of the Great City Schools, “The Urban Teacher Challenge” (2000); Education Commissions of the States, “Teacher Recruitment, Preparation, and Retention in Hard-to-Staff Schools” (1999); R. M. Ingersoll, “Teacher Turnover, Teacher Shortages, and the Organization of Schools (2001); National Commissions on Teaching and America’s Future: “No Dream Denied: A Pledge to America’s Children” (2003). These reports present seven areas for action: 1) identifying appropriate teacher education candidates, 2) designing a targeted recruitment, 3) implementing specific training models, 4) providing persistence to graduation support systems, 5) sustaining retention and renewal strategies, 6) improving instructional leadership and principal training, 7) improving school climates.

This white paper submitted by the Northeastern Illinois University Consortium (Northeastern Illinois University and the Chicago Teachers’ Center, Truman City College, Wright City College, and Chicago Public Schools) and commissioned by the Illinois Board of Higher Education as part of the Illinois State Title II Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant for Middle Level Teacher Preparation, will discuss questions and recommendation that emerge from the first five action items above in regards to teacher preparation programs for urban schools in general and urban middle schools or middle level grades in particular. The questions to be addressed are: 1) how are individuals with appropriate dispositions or interests for teaching in high need schools and or middle schools to be identified and recruited; 2) whether the recruitment for pre-service teacher candidates has targeted and recruited the diverse student population that better reflects the demographics of the urban school district and are most likely to succeed and remain in high need and high poverty schools; 3) when the appropriate candidates have been recruited (from either the pool of traditional teacher education candidates or from non-traditional or community members) are the teacher preparation programs of study designed to ensure and support the success and graduation of these particular pre-service candidates; 4) whether the training these candidates receive in their teacher education programs includes the specific pedagogical, professional, dispositional, cultural, ethical/values and content knowledge that can help prepare them to succeed and persist; 5) whether early, guided field experiences in high need schools and at the middle level will contribute to more high performing teachers teaching and remaining in these schools.

The following is a summary of the recommendations on these five questions from the NEIU Consortium:

Identify personality traits, dispositions and interests that indicate a predisposition for making effective learning alliances with individuals who are different from oneself. This is important since at this time the majority of individuals who enter colleges of education are female, white and of the majority culture.
Redesign teacher education programs for traditional candidates that build cultural competency.
Integrate planned, guided, reflective and sustained experiential as well as service learning and early field experiences in diverse schools and communities.
Integrate applied research methodology and collaborative classroom action research into courses and field experiences.
Recruitment strategies that focus on individuals most likely to teach in and be successful in high need schools --that is individuals from the communities, paraprofessionals and non-traditional college students who are culturally, racially, and linguistically diverse and are male as well as female.
The teacher-training program must build in appropriate transitions and bridging experiences to the higher education setting, as well as academic, social, cultural, situated clinical, reflective and financial supports to ensure the persistence, graduation and successful placement of these non-traditional, paraprofessional or community member teacher candidates. Such supports would include (but not be limited to) alternatively structured pathways to certification programs designed to address the learner needs of the non-traditional candidates.
Develop and maintain collaborations with community colleges. These collaborations would support the design, instruction, documentation/assessment and transfer of work through AAT degrees, a career lattice and other avenues that remove redundancy and allow individuals to enter the pathway towards becoming teachers (such as early field experiences, content courses with rich pedagogy embedded) from their freshman year on.
Redesign of the current teacher education programs to have a multicultural, social reconstructionist, interdisciplinary, ethics, values and organizational and human development orientation.

9. Create state policy for specific credentialing, licensure, certification or acknowledged/recognized specialization for teaching at the middle level that is not overlapping (that is not overlapping with elementary or secondary certification) and that is specific in structure, philosophy, content and pedagogy to teaching at the middle level.

10. Deliver teacher education programs for middle level that are: a) specific to young adolescents, b) have strong and authentic collaboration between content specialists and pedagogy specialists, c) are rich in early field experiences in high need, specifically selected middle level partner schools or middle level classrooms, and in the communities in which those schools are located, d) are not overlapping and are clearly identified as a unique sequence toward a middle level specialization, e) are aligned to the standards developed by the National Middle School Association, the National Forum and the professional organization of Professors of Middle Level Teacher Education

11. Initiate programs to recruit pre-collegiate students who might not have otherwise identified teaching, as careers. This option is often called “grow your own” or teacher academy programs. (RNT, 2000).

Recommendations and Findings in Literature Review

Implications from the Literature on Recruitment for Initial Teacher Preparation in Middle Level

According to Curran (2003), the lack of teachers with specific middle level preparation lies not in the unwillingness of prospective teachers to enroll in these programs (the programs at Appalachian State, Ohio State, Illinois State University, University of South Carolina at Greensboro, and University of Texas at El Paso, to name just a few, confirm the recruitment potential and interest in middle level teacher education programs), but in the “unavailability of undergraduate…middle level teacher preparation programs.”

An additional barrier to recruitment and high quality teacher preparation at the middle level lies with how teaching licenses overlap grade levels. Gaskill’s (2002) national study confirms this problem and concludes that the overlapping licenses discourages the recruitment of pre-service teachers for specialized middle grades initial teacher education programs. The authors of Turning Points 2000 suggest, “Prospective teachers should have the opportunity to decide upon a career which focuses on a single developmental age group and a rigorous preparation in the subjects they will teach. This specialized professional preparation should be rewarded by a distinctive license that accurately informs all concerned that the teacher receiving it has demonstrated his or her abilities to teach young adolescents effectively” (Jackson& Davis, 2000, p103). An oral survey of higher education faculty who visited the booth on Teacher Education for Middle Level at the 2004 AACTE conference in Chicago found that 80% of those who responded said that programs at their university and or universities in their state that have a clearly identified content and pedagogy program at the middle level have been successful in recruiting and graduating students with a middle level specialization whether or not the state in which they were located had a middle level certification or license. University programs with overlapping preparation models continued to have recruitment problems whether or not the program was offered in a state with middle level certification or license. While this oral survey does not meet scientific rigor it does suggest that state certification or licensure is important but it is neither necessary nor sufficient to recruiting candidates to enroll in teacher preparation programs for middle level.

In Illinois (as well as nationally) ~~it is still true~~ teachers of young adolescents too often begin their teaching careers lacking preparation and experience with either young adolescents or any specialized knowledge of the middle level student (Curran, 2003; Beane, 2001; Dickinson, 2001; Useem, 2001; Dickinson and McEwin, 1997;George and Alexander, 1993; George et al, 1992, Knowles and Brown, 2000; McEwin and Dickinson, 1997; Scales, 1992; Wiles & Bondi, 1986). This problem, coupled with the fact that the majority of middle level teachers are teaching out-of-field, with overlapping licenses in elementary education or secondary education, generates circumstances in which there are a lack of teachers qualified to teach content in the depth or breath that is developmentally appropriate to the middle level student. The National Center for Educational Statistics statistical analysis report on Qualifications of the Public School Teacher Work Force: Prevalence of Out-of-Field Teaching 1987-1988 to 199-2000 indicates:

In the 1999-2000 school year, at least two-thirds of the students in middle grade mathematics classes (69%) and ESL/bilingual education classes (73%) had teachers who did not report a major, minor or certification in the subject taught. Approximately 60% of the students in middle-grade English classes (58%), foreign languages (61%) and science classes (57%) had a teacher who did not report a major and certification in the subject taught. By comparison, although the estimate for the specific subfield of biology/life science (64%) is similar to the percent for all science classes, most students in middle-grade physical science classes (93%) had teachers who did not have certification along with a major in any of the physical sciences or in physical science education. About one-half of the students in middle grade social science classes (51%) had teachers who did not have a major and certification in the field, but 71% of the students in middle-grade history classes had teachers who did not report having a major in history or world civilization and certification in the field.

The National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grade Reform issued a policy statement in 2002 recommending mandated specialized training for prospective middle level teachers. It is their contention, based on experiences in more than 20 states, that specific middle level teacher training programs, and or certification (as opposed to overlapping training and or licensure), facilitate the recruitment of candidates for middle level. ~~While they clearly endorse state level certification t~~ The Forum is clear in its findings that initial teacher preparation programs that have high quality, clearly defined courses of study that lead to a specialization in middle level have been effective in providing high quality and highly qualified middle school teachers. According to their study however, currently, only 20% of middle level teachers are trained to teach in middle level or in the content area in which they are teaching. The statistics were even more dramatic in high need urban and rural school districts. The National Forum outlined four areas that should be included in initial teacher preparation for middle level:

1. Two content majors and/or concentrations

2. Developmental responsiveness to middle level philosophy, young adolescent development

3. Specific training in equity, culture, family and diversity and

4. Early, sustained, on-going, reflective field and clinical experiences primarily in the middle level grades for initial teacher education candidates.

Implications from the Literature on Recruitment for Initial Teacher Preparation for High Need and High Poverty Schools

National statistics show that the student body in p-12 and middle schools is growing more diverse while the teaching force is becoming increasingly white and increasingly female. In Illinois, the National Clearinghouse survey data that shows 85% of pre-service graduates entering the teaching field are white and only 15% are minority.

Any approach to increase the recruitment of teachers for high need middle level schools must include a study of research and best practices in recruitment for high need and high poverty schools in general. In response to the disparity between the culturally and linguistically diverse student population in public schools and the predominately white teaching force the National Council of Accreditation of Colleges of Education (NCATE) as well as studies by Yasin and Albert (1999), Hood and Parker (1994) and Quiocho&Rios (2000) called upon schools of education to increase the diversity among their student ranks. Others such as Bennett (2000) have called for including a significant training component in the education of the so-called traditional candidate in the broad spectrum of skills needed for cultural competency.

Sherry L. Steely in the fall 2003 Journal of the Association of Teacher Educators reviewed the research on programs that have proven to be effective in recruiting, retaining and graduating culturally and linguistically diverse teachers. Her data builds an argument for programs that are specifically designed using criteria that has shown to be successful. … barriers to culturally and linguistically diverse candidates in traditional teacher training are substantial (Burant, 1999’ Gonzalez, 1997’ Hood and Parker, 1994, Pailliotet, 1997’ Shen, 1999’ Sleeter, 2002, Steely, 2003). Thus, traditional teacher education programs have largely proven ineffective as a means to recruit, train and retain and graduate minority education majors in significant numbers (Beckett, 1998;Dandy, 1998;Piercynskiu, Matranga& Peltier, 1997,Yasin& Albert, 1999).

Minority teacher recruitment and retention initiatives encompass a spectrum of programs ranging from early recruitment of high school students, through community college programs, through paraeducator to educator pipeline projects (Quioco&Rios, 2000; Yasin&Albert, 1999). While some states and districts provided support or offered programs based on the opportunity offered by enabling legislation, the majority were funded by the [Federal Title II Higher Education Teacher Quality Education Recruitment Grants] and private foundations such as the Pew Charitable Trust, the Ford Foundation, Dewitt Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund, Phillip Morris, and the Multicultural Alliance (Dandy, 1998; Genzuk&Baca, 1998;Quicho&Rios, 2000;Villegas&Clewell, 1998;Yasin&Albert, 1999).

Steely’s Table 1. Minority Teacher Recruitment Initiatives-Public and Private

Program Name	Type	Students	Partners	Sponsor	Citation
American Indian College Fund	Grants to Colleges	Native American Teachers		Phillip Morris	Yasin and Albert 1999
Consortia on Teacher Supply and Quality	Support for Summer Institutes and Cadet Programs	Precollegiate	Southern Education Foundation	Pew Charitable Trust	Contreas& Nicklas, 1993, Yasin & Albert, 1999
Minority Teacher Development Program	Pre-collegiate Student education	High School Students (Minority)	Multicultural Alliance	Phillip Morris	Yasin & Albert, 1999
Minority Teaching Fellows Project	Scholarships for seminars and graduate study	College juniors	Participating Institutions	Rockefeller Brothers Fund	Yasin & Albert 1999
New Teacher Recruitment and Retention Project	Recruitment from Historically Black Colleges	Alumni seeking career change.	Columbia University Teachers’ College	Pew Charitable Trust	Yasin & Albert 1999
Pathways to Teaching	Programs for non-certified teachers, paraprofessionals	Also funded High school Programs	Many	DeWitt Wallace Readers Digest Fund	Villegas& Clewell, 1998;Yasin & Albert 1999
Pool of Recruit able Teachers Project (PORT)	Bridges to higher education: teachers for Los Angeles	High School students	LA school, regional conferences.	Carnegie Corporation	Yasin & Albert 1999
Project: I Teach	Support for transition to higher education, academic, study skill, financial support	Hispanic High School Students	University of Texas, Educational Testing Services, (EST), San Antonio and Edgewood LEA’s	Texas Education Agency	Zapata, 1988
Regional Latino Teacher Project	Alternative certification for Para educators	Paraprofessionals in public schools	City, county, district governments, school districts and universities	Ford Foundation	Becket, 1998; Genzuk& Baca, 1998; Yasin & Albert, 1999
Strengthening Bridges	Community College Transfer Program (NYU)	Minority community college students	New York University	Phillip Morris	Yasin & Albert 1999
Teaching Leadership Consortia	University supported programs	Minority teachers, recruitment and retention	Five Ohio Universities	University Funded	Yasin & Albert 1999
Troops to teachers	Alternative Certification	Career changers and military personnel/retirees	By state		Quioco& Rios, 2000;Yasin & Albert, 1999

According to the Breaking the Class Barrier (2004) the graduates of specially designed programs for initial teacher preparation programs for high need schools and graduates of specially designed alternative pathways to certification are nine times more racially and culturally diverse than teacher education graduates nationally. Participants in these programs are 77% individuals of color while teacher education graduates nationally are 8% individuals of color.

In 1997 Gonzalez reviewed the experiences of teachers in programs outlined in Table 1 and gathered the following feedback on what, in the opinion of these teachers, contributed to their success:

· Preservice teachers in specifically designed or alternative route programs emphasized the benefits of the human dimension of their programs through supportive relationships with mentors, recruiters, faculty and peers.

· As students had frequently enrolled in their programs after contact with peer recruiters, they were subsequently expected to undertake a similar function [that is by becoming recruiters or mentors during their training as well as after graduation]. Mentorship provided high contact/low bureaucracy support in navigating the program.

· Students who succeed and graduate benefited from institutional bridges to the university, with academic and institutional support in transferring from community colleges to four-year institutions, as well as support for attaining high academic standards that include academic achievement in rigorous coursework and GPA requirements.

· Successful programs embraced and directly addressed the academic deficits with which some students entered these programs; there was direct support and training in academic and metacognitive skills.

· Students often reported taking on roles of responsibility within the program, such as arranging logistics for academic support, tracking progress toward program requirements, and other duties, which empowered them as active agents managing their own professional and academic achievement.

· Students reported early, intense and structured experience in schools as an important to their success in the programs.

A key finding of the Gonzalez report is that: “ students reported the development of a view of the teaching profession that seems to incorporate professional identity, critical pedagogy, and social justice “. At odds with the low status of the teaching profession reflected among U. S. students overall (Su, 1997), these students viewed their roles as essential to improving educational prospects for students from their groups. This view of the profession tracks with extensive research on motivation, professional identity, and the social justice orientation of culturally and linguistically diverse teachers in U. S. schools (Hood& Parker, 1994; Quiocho& Rios.2000; Su, 1997).

Breaking the Class Ceiling and the Steely studies list specific key elements in successful programs for recruiting; training and retaining high performing teachers in high need urban schools. The table below by Steely references those elements.

Steely’s Table 2 Key Elements of Eight Successful Programs

Program	Alternative Routes (cross program analysis)	Latino Teacher Project	Navajo Nation Teacher Preparation Program	Pathways To Teaching Careers Program	Pilot Project Community College Students	Project I Teach	Project Opening Doors	Project Transformative Educational Model (TEAM)
Researcher Years of Study	Gonzalez 1997	Genuk & Baca, 1998; Beckett, 1998	Beckett 1998	Villegas& Clewell 1998	Contreras& Nicklas 1993	Zapata 1988	Dillard 1994
Number of Participants In Study	6 Institutions	4 Universities 3 LEA’s	1 University System 1 LEA	27 institutions	48 students	21 students	21 participants	56 participants
Cultural/ Linguistic/or ethnic group	African American, Native American Hispanic	Latino	Navajo	African American Native American Asian	Hispanic, other minority	Hispanic	African American & Hispanic	African American Hispanic
Professional Status of the students	Paraprofessionals Alternative Candidates	Para-educators	Para-professionals, Alternative Candidates	Para educator & emergency certified teachers	High school, Community College Students	High school Students	U Undergraduates	University under Graduates
Academic Achievement	*	*			*	*		*
Academic Support	*	*	*	*	*	*		*
Bridges to Higher education	*	*	*	*	*	*		*
Critical or equity Pedagogy	*						*	*
Experiences in schools, early and intense	*	*	*				*	*
Human interaction, mentoring	*	*	*	*			*	*
Peer Recruiting	*					*
Responsibility	*	*	*			*
Social Justice	*						*	*
View of Teaching	*					*	*	*

In addition to the programs cited by Steely there are significant national findings from teacher education program models that have been successful in recruiting and graduating minority and culturally and linguistically diverse teachers and placing them in high need schools. Among these programs are those identified by Recruiting New Teachers, the DeWitt Wallace-Readers Digest Foundation, Council of Great City Schools Urban Teaching Project, the Haberman Foundation and the American Association of College Teacher Educators (AACTE whitepaper on 2-year and 4-year higher education collaborations). While each of the programs these organizations describe has its own specific activities they all share one or more of the following:

· Pre-service teachers are recruited from the high need urban communities and from PDS (school university partnership professional development schools) such as paraprofessionals, parent volunteers and school service workers, were more likely to return to teach in that school or community.

· Older, non-traditional and returning adult students had higher retention rates in high need urban schools than traditional teacher graduates.

· Community College students who were older, came from non-traditional backgrounds, and were residents of the local (in Chicago, high need urban) community were more likely to choose teaching in high need schools.

· Nearly 70% of all minority teachers across Illinois (and nationally) have spent one or more years in community college (ICCB data) and are an important group to address in issues of access and equity in teacher recruitment and preparation.

· In a study of 10,000 participants in 122 Grow Your Own programs that began in high schools and middle schools, 89% of teacher education majors graduated and completed their teaching major, and 93% of these program participants entered a teaching career. (Compared to 30% graduation of enrolled students in traditional teacher education programs and of those graduates only 40% become teachers. Thus for every 1000 approximately 12% become teachers. (Breaking the Class Ceiling 2003)

· New professional roles have emerged in these programs that are important to the program’s success and continued high level implementation:

§ The teacher-in-residence from the partner school who works both in the school and in the higher education setting to bridge experiences between the theory and practice,

§ The arts and sciences professor-in-residence who works at the partner school, the community college and in the teacher education program and provides support to on-going professional development in content knowledge for the cooperating teachers, and

§ The education professor-in-residence who works at the partner school, the community college and in the teacher education program and provides support to the school climate, culture and on-going professional development in instructional delivery systems and in mentoring for the cooperating teachers, and

§ The cross-institutional recruiter and advisor who works directly with advisors and students in the local educational agency, the schools, the community colleges and the university/teacher education institution. The El Paso Texas Federal Title II Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant cites this new professional role as a key contributor to the success of their teacher preparation program for non -traditional students and community members.

Data Specific to the Northeastern Illinois University Consortia

The Northeastern Illinois University Consortium is in a key position for recruiting culturally and linguistically diverse students into the teaching profession. The Consortium serves a highly diverse cultural and linguistic minority student population with 57 % of students enrolled at Northeastern being Native American, African, African American, Asian or Hispanic, and 43% white (many of whom are language minorities, Middle Eastern or recent immigrants from Eastern Europe). Similarly Truman College serves a diverse student population that is 76% minority and Wright College serves a student body that is 63% minority. The “typical” entry-level consortia student is over 20 years old, and is working 10 hours or more a week to support themselves, a nuclear family or extended family members. At Truman and Wright the majority of the students are returning adults with half time or full time jobs. All three campuses serve students who are English Language Learners, recent immigrants, refugees, or who are first generation college attendees.

While 52% of the students who enter the Northeastern Illinois University College of Education as undergraduates are of minority background (largest number of these are Hispanic), the attrition rate here, as in many colleges of education across the country, is high and graduation and completion rate low compared to the white students. The NEIU Consortium has increasing this persistence rate as a central goal.

Chicago Public Schools, the largest school district in Illinois and one of the local educational agency partners in the Northeastern Illinois University Consortium have initiated a variety of teacher recruitment and retention programs to staff high need and high poverty schools. Among these was the human capital initiative, the tieiring of teacher education programs from which teachers are recruited, a summer academy for future teachers, rent subsidized apartments for student and novice teachers and the mentoring and induction program (Golden Teachers) for first and second year teachers. However even with these new initiatives, and a focus on recruitment and retention, among teachers hired in 1993-1994 more than 17% of teachers left the system within the first two years. Among teachers hired in 2001-2002, 32% of teachers had left the system within two years. In the 2002 report ACORN projects that with the ~~that~~ given ~~that~~ attrition trend up to 50% of new hires from 2001-2002 will have left the system within five years of hire. The question remains as to what needs to happen in recruitment and teacher preparation at the undergraduate level that will provide the scaffolding new teachers need to be successful in urban schools.

The McCotter survey (2001) Middle Grades Teacher Preparation Survey indicated that 3-5 year graduates who went on to teach at the middle level felt under prepared to teach young adolescents. In addition they felt that they did not have the requisite knowledge base in the content area(s) in which they were teaching. Focus groups and needs assessment in five Chicago urban middle schools conducted by the NEIU Consortium confirmed the McCotter findings. Teachers indicated that while the middle school endorsement courses they had taken had raised their level of awareness of middle level philosophy and practice they did not prepare them to work in a team with other teachers, to deliver the content they were expected to teach, to work with adolescent behaviors or to otherwise navigate in a middle level school environment. Many felt they were “failing” and were considering seeking a position in another grade or leaving teaching altogether. This data indicates that specifically designed teacher preparation programs for middle level will increase the recruitment and retention of teachers in urban middle schools.

The recommendations in this white paper if implemented at a high level hold promise for at least beginning to address the questions raised by the ACORN report and the McCotter Survey.

Design Components

Significant to the recruitment and retention of teachers for middle level, the Consortia has designed an initial teacher preparation course of study that is delivered in a learning communities format with teams of faculty working together with cohorts of students in blocked scheduled courses. These content, pedagogy and methods courses link and integrate content and pedagogy. Using the learning communities model of interdisciplinary instruction the teacher candidates receive their education in a format that reflects and models the underlying concepts in the Carnegie and AIMS Report.

Subject to final Consortium and institutional support and faculty governance the Consortium has developed are two major degree options: Option one: candidates may earn a middle level specialization/enhanced endorsement with both a math and science education endorsement (connected to an elementary education certification). Option two: candidates may earn a middle level specialization/enhanced endorsement with both a language arts endorsement and a social science endorsement (as well as being just two courses short of an ESL endorsement). Whether a student pursues the Option one or Option two, both sequences embed technology, reading and writing in the content areas and instructional delivery supports for middle level, urban and high needs schools, special needs students and language minority students.

The Consortium integrated into the design of the teacher preparation program for middle level many of the components identified earlier as contributing to the success of recruiting and preparing teachers to teach in high need and hard to staff schools: forums for reflection and self examination beginning in the freshman year (seen in the NEIU Consortium in the Teams Experiential Education Course, School and Society, Integrated Arts/Arts Integration Course, the ESL sequence, the Exceptional Child in the Classroom Course, the reworked foundations and methods courses and embedded in the early, guided, sustained field, service learning and later clinical experiences. These learning experiences develop individual self-awareness and identity, as well as student ethnic identity, concepts that research links to academic achievement and positive interactions with individuals representing diverse cultural and ethnic groups. (Bennett et al 2000). The courses and opportunities for facilitated reflection in particular foster integrated pluralism, a concept associated with inter-group respect and positive affirmation (Steely, 2003). These along with a design that threads an integrated approach to both deep and broad content knowledge, adolescent development, special needs issues and the pursuit of social justice even in the content concentration (see, for example, research on math education as the gatekeeper for higher education, the National Algebra Project) are important components in the Consortium design.

Early field and service learning experiences in exemplary high need and middle school classrooms as well as courses that integrate a collaborative inquiry or action research and applied research methodology are among the strategies that help preservice students become more aware of their own learning processes and contribute to their capacity to succeed. Students, content faculty and faculty across the colleges of education and city colleges collaborate with teachers in the classroom or individuals in the community to study significant questions and to gain skills in systematic study and observation while furthering their understanding of the dynamics of teaching and learning (Dillard; Project Opening Doors: Critical Pedagogy and Ethnic Identity, 1994).

Enrollment Cycle and Advising

The Consortium has put in place a counselor to work across the partner institutions. This position was created out of a needs assessment of our students and a review of literature on programs that have been successful in recruiting from community colleges and from partner LEAs and communities. The role of the cross consortia counselor is to link services between institutions, work directly with pre major and college of education major advisors and the students, as well as to act as liaison between administrators and policy makers to develop the institutional policies that will put in place and maintain the management structures to sustain students throughout the program and to graduation.

Next steps for the Northeastern Illinois Consortium

The Consortium has designed a program that addresses the content and pedagogy issues important in effective classroom practices in high need schools and middle schools. However, the design, as it currently stands does not address all of the current infrastructural and systemic barriers to recruitment, persistence, graduation, placement and retention that the research literature (e.g. Gonzalez, Breaking the Class Ceiling, Haberman, Villegas& Clewell and DeWitt Wallace) indicates are so important. These issues range from scheduling classes in the evening, on weekends and in schools in the community, to providing academic support in content and metacognitive strategies, life coaching, mentoring and advising.

To effectively address these issues the Consortium is seeking funding to develop: 1) an alternative pathway to certification program based on the Northeastern Illinois University model of the University Without Walls and programs similar to those in the DeWitt Wallace Pathways project for non-traditional students, paraprofessionals and community members. This alternative pathway program would ~~that~~ incorporates the social/emotional, cultural, academic and financial supports outlined in this whitepaper, 2) a “Grow Your Own” model based on the work in the Youth on Youth Project at Truman College, on Middle School and High School Teacher Education Academies in Los Angeles and by Recruiting New Teachers, 3) an expansion of the pilot project at El Centro at Northeastern that supported individuals who were teachers in their countries of origin in passing the Illinois Test of Basic Skills, the English Competency and Math Competency assessments and in becoming students in the Consortium program.

Continuing Challenges-Public Policy and Institutional Policy

1. The lack of a state supported certification at the middle level remains a challenge

2. New funding formulas, reward, promotion and retention policies that support the cross-institutional and cross system structures and hires that are required by these new programs and practices. For example:

a) A new funding formula is needed that supports the position of professor in residence in community colleges and public schools.

b) A new funding formula is needed that supports the position of teacher-in-residence in community colleges and universities.

c) Policies and funding that support teaching positions across and between institutions.

d) Funding of cross institutional advising positions

3. Funding, tuition, student aid, and reimbursement as well as accountability formulas need to be modified to support true consortium cross-institutional programs.

4. Scholarships and financial support for pre-service candidates (child care, transportation etc.) who elect to participate in initial teacher preparation programs for high need and high poverty schools.

5. A redesign of requirements and delivery of clinical/internship experiences and student teaching that builds on partnerships with LEAs so that individuals who must work to support their families earn a reasonable level of compensation while completing program requirements.

6. Per Donald Moore of Designs for Change (2004): 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 doesn’t assume permanent special funding. If the consortium model and the model for recruitment and initial teacher preparation for high need and hard to staff schools and middle level classrooms described in this whitepaper is to be sustained, the partner institutions must integrate the program(s) into their staffing strategies, job descriptions and institutional budgets.