Recruiting, Preparing, and Retaining High Quality Secondary Mathematics and Science Teachers for Urban Schools: The Cal Teach Experimental Program

Summary

Recruiting, preparing, and retaining high quality secondary mathematics and science teachers are three of the most critical problems in our nation’s urban schools that serve a vast majority of children from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds (Council on Science and Technology and the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, 2007; EdSource, 2008; Rumberger, 1985). Although the factors contributing to these problems are complex, one area that has caught the attention of leaders of the teacher education community centers are the alternative pathways (or routes) through which teachers are trained and allowed into the profession (Hanushek, Kain, O’Brien, & Rivkin, 2005). This article describes the distinctive design of Cal Teach compared to the traditional pathway through which teachers are prepared. The design of Cal Teach provides a basis for our subsequent discussions. We discuss challenging issues in recruiting strong candidates (i.e., STEM majors) into teaching and how they are addressed. We then focus on the preparation of candidates, highlighting what we perceive are some of the problematic aspects of traditional teaching education programs and describing how Cal Teach is modeled and designed to overcome these problems. Following this, we describe mechanisms through which Cal Teach attempts to help retain graduates in the teaching force.