Recruiting urban students to become future educators

Fort Worth, TX

10/23/2007

By: Hannah Mathews, TCU Office of Communications

Of the more than 68,000 students in the state of Texas who took the ACT/2000 college entrance examination, only six percent expressed an interest in teaching as a profession, and that number is lower in urban settings.

The Center for Urban Education, a part of TCU's College of Education, has received $25,000 from Citibank to help fund a pilot program -- called Aspiring Educators -- to increase the percentage by recruiting inner city, minority high school students into the teaching profession.

The Aspiring Educators program, a joint effort between the TCU Center for Urban Education and the Fort Worth Independent School District, will enroll 75 minority students from three schools, Dunbar, Polytechnic and Wyatt High Schools. The students will be selected into the program based on their interest in teaching and they will receive assistance from the program to become teachers in urban schools.

According to the Aspiring Educator program, teachers of color are likely to provide positive role models to children, empower children of color to succeed in school and build bridges between students' home and school. Teachers of color are also more likely to be willing to work in urban settings.

Citigroup is providing the Aspiring Educators initiative with overall program support, which will enable the program to be carried to the three high schools, to bring students to campus for workshops and symposiums, to provide incentives to encourage a high level of participation, to allow for travel for field trips and conferences among many other priorities within the program.

Demographic studies show a disproportionate numbers of students in urban schools are low achieving, have discipline issues and have low attendance and high dropout rates. These conditions are difficult for teachers within the schools, resulting in high frustration and burnout among the school personnel. There is an acute shortage of minority teachers within urban city schools that creates a racial-ethnic gap between teachers and students, and the Aspiring Educators program hopes to address these challenges by recruiting urban students to teach in urban schools.

Recognizing the need for urban educators, Citigroup is partnering with TCU’s Center for Urban Education to help encourage students to become teachers and teachers who will be prepared to teach in urban schools. Participants in the program will learn "best practices" for urban education settings by attending monthly meetings, campus programs, symposiums, workshops and knowledge-based meetings that review current research in teaching in urban schools.

In addition to these programs, participants will receive help in ACT preparation, college applications, conferences, field trips and mentoring and homework support from TCU's offices of Inclusiveness and Intercultural Services and Upward Bound, which help first-generation, underprivileged college students with their university experience.

One major focus for the Aspiring Educators program is to provide a rich learning experience for the participants through these activities and resources. The program began in the summer prior to the 2007-2008 school year with a luncheon to recruit students into the program, followed by small group sessions to answer individual questions.

If the program proves to be a success, the Aspiring Educators program will be implemented into additional inner city schools in surrounding areas, hoping to expand the minority representation of teachers in urban schools. If all 75 participants of the Aspiring Educators program were to become teachers, more than 11,000 students - 75 teachers with a class size of 30 for five classes per day - could benefit from the program.


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Media contact:
Shawn Kornegay
Asst. director of communications
817-257-5061
s.kornegay@tcu.edu