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More Than 600,000 K-12 Teachers Begin Careers in Community College
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Programs Address Issues of Quality and Quantity, Research Shows
WASHINGTON, D.C.– October 23, 2002 – The nation's 1,100
community colleges, which now educate more than one of every five
public school teachers, remain an untapped resource in addressing
the nation's most severe teacher shortage in more than 40 years.
With additional support and better links to four-year colleges and
careers in the classroom, emerging programs to prepare teachers
at these institutions can be the key to finding hundreds of thousands
of new, highly qualified teachers in the next decade, according
to a new report released today by the Belmont, Mass.-based nonprofit
Recruiting New Teachers, Inc.
Today, 20 percent – or roughly 600,000 teachers – currently
begin their careers in community college. If this trend continues,
and additional resources are set aside to strengthen teacher preparation
programs at the community college level, America could cut its shortage
of 2.4 million teachers by one quarter or more.
Yet, while interest in teaching at the K-12 level is high among
community college students, there is no infrastructure currently
in place to advance more students to four-year education programs
and the teaching profession. According to the study, which was supported
by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, teacher preparation programs
now operating at a growing number of community colleges nationwide
can be expanded to capitalize on student interest and could supply
many of the total number of teachers needed in the next ten years.
Because nearly half of all minority college students – 46
percent of African Americans and 55 percent of Hispanics –
attend community colleges, strengthened teacher education programs
at these institutions will also address another crucial issue in
schools: the lack of diversity among the nation's teaching force.
Today, schools make up approximately 56 percent of students of color
and only 14 percent teachers of color. This gap is even more pronounced
in urban schools where minorities make up 69 percent of the student
body but only 35 percent of the teaching staff.
"Strengthening and expanding teacher education programs on
community college campuses not only offer the best hope we have
to overcome the teacher shortage in this country, it is a powerful
solution to improving teacher quality at the same time," says
Mildred Hudson, CEO of Recruiting New Teachers. "Community
college programs can develop a larger, better prepared, and more
ethnically diverse pool of teacher candidates in communities across
the nation."
According to the RNT study, students who transfer from community
colleges to four-year institutions perform at about the same level
as students who began at the four-year campuses. Many admissions
programs ensure that only the highest achieving students transfer
from two-year schools to four-year education programs. Faculty at
four-year schools report that education transfer students often
are better prepared than those who started there as freshmen, in
part because their community college preparation gave them direct
experience in the schools.
"Rather than hoping that those who drift into teaching without
adequate training will succeed in our most challenging classrooms,
we need to actively recruit prospective teachers who understand
our students' cultural backgrounds, and teachers that have the maturity,
skills, knowledge and attitudes to build upon students' strengths,"
says actor Edward James Olmos, a longtime member of the RNT board
of directors. "Community college programs can then provide
these students with a strong liberal arts content and launch them
on a course to be outstanding teachers."
Equally significant, many teachers educated at community colleges
are older adults who tend to do better at maintaining discipline,
come from nontraditional backgrounds, and are residents of the local
community who are more likely to prefer teaching in urban schools,
the report says. For instance, at a Lehman College program in the
Bronx, about 80 percent of graduates, two thirds of whom began at
community colleges, elect to teach in Bronx schools.
Tapping Potential: Community Colleges and America's Teacher Recruitment
Challenge profiles six model programs and examines policies and
practices in all 50 states. Programs profiled in the report include
Bronx Community College in New York, El Paso Community College in
Tex., Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Mich., Miami-Dade
Community College in Florida, Community College of Philadelphia,
and Phoenix College in Arizona.
According to the report, these six programs hold students to high
standards and offer high-quality, relevant teacher training preparation.
Students who graduate from these programs emerge well grounded in
an introduction to teaching and learning, have experience in schools,
are more mature, and are committed, in an informed way, to pursuing
teaching careers. The report notes that successful community college
teacher education programs:
* Set clear goals to focus their program and encourage shared
purpose and the effective use of resources.
* Demonstrate leadership to marshal the support needed to ensure
that the program becomes well established.
* Hire dedicated and demanding faculty who serve as model classroom
practitioners, mentors, counselors, and friends.
* Design well-planned and consistent recruitment efforts to help
identify promising teaching candidates and help start them on the
pathway to careers.
* Maintain a well-designed, relevant, and coherent curriculum
with high standards to ensure effective teaching and positive, relevant,
and stimulating experiences.
* Create partnerships with four-year institutions to smooth and
strengthen the transfer process and ensure that prospective teachers
continue on the path to the classroom.
* Provide support, counseling, and mentoring to help guide students
through the transfer process, and ensure flexible schedules, organized
study, support groups, tutoring, financial aid, and other assistance.
* Ensure adequate funding and provide for sustainability to avoid
spending valuable time and resources seeking external grants or
advocating for the program's survival.
* Assess and monitor students regularly to determine whether programs
are preparing them for rigorous academic work and field experiences
in schools, and ensuring smooth transfer of academic credits.
Currently, 20 states are working in some capacity to identify and
train prospective educators at community colleges. While all of
the programs are fairly easy to enter, reflecting the open-door
policy of community colleges, they are difficult to complete due
to high standards required of students. Despite their rigor, most
of the programs boast higher transfer rates than the national average.
Tapping Potential: Recommendations
Despite their demonstrated success, only a few states provide specific
funding for community college teacher preparation programs, and
few colleges or universities have adequate programs aimed at supporting
potential teachers through the transition from community college
to a baccalaureate program and on to a teaching career.
The report also found that few community colleges recruit potential
teachers and provide them with faculty and programs that offer sufficient
preparation for transferring to a four-year college or university
teacher preparation program. "We're well past the 'pilot stage'
of assessing how and whether teacher education programs on two-year
campuses work. The challenge now lies with state and federal lawmakers
to ensure wider availability and long-term viability of these programs,"
says Hudson.
The report urges lawmakers to work collaboratively with community
colleges and four-year institutions to create a more seamless transfer
process from the community colleges to four-year programs. State
policymakers can authorize more community college campuses to offer
education coursework and classroom experience, and to offer associate
degrees in education.
In addition, the report calls on policymakers to facilitate the
development of models to encourage the recruitment and guidance
of community college education students and to ensure that scholarships
and loan forgiveness opportunities include this population.
The report calls for more community colleges to design teacher
preparation programs that provide students with relevant, demanding
course work and exposure to teaching. In addition, two-year schools
are asked to strengthen interinstitutional collaborations through
articulation agreements, and to provide consistent funding to teacher
preparation programs. For their part, four-year colleges and universities
are charged with developing long-term collaborations with community
colleges, creating seamless transfer opportunities for community
college students interested in pursuing teaching careers including
the full acceptance of credits accumulated at two-year schools,
and providing incentives for community college education students
such as reduced tuition, scholarships, dual enrollment programs,
and support systems.
Recruiting New Teachers, Inc. is a national nonprofit organization
based in Belmont, Massachusetts. It was formed in 1986 to raise
esteem for teaching, expand the pool of prospective teachers, and
improve the nation's teacher recruitment and development policies
and practices. RNT is committed to this goal and pursues it through
innovative public service outreach; action-oriented research; local,
state, and national advocacy; networking; technical assistance;
and by convening national conferences.
http://www.recruitingteachers.org/channels/clearinghouse/audience/media/1g11_media_presstappingpotential.htm
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