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School of Education Recruits Minorities for TEAMS
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Fifth-grade students from Leonard R. Flynn Elementary hand out fliers at a grocery store in San Francisco's Mission District, as part of a service-learning project designed by education student Wendy Ginsburg, a 2004-06 TEAMS fellow. The fliers warn of lead in popular candies. |
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As American schools grapple with a shortage of minority educators, the University of San Francisco’s minority teacher training program is working to turn the tide.
Preparing more minority teachers not only increases equity in the classroom, but also provides positive role models for minority students, according to Mary Rose Fernandez, director of USF’s Teacher Education for the Advancement of a Multicultural Society (TEAMS) program. Now in its 10th year, TEAMS has graduated about 3,500 fellows. Of those, about 500 have come from USF’s School of Education, which administers the program for a handful of universities from San Diego to Seattle.
“We seek to develop a highly qualified teaching force that is reflective of the racial and ethnic diversity of students in urban, K-12 schools,” she said.
By just about any yardstick, the program has been a success. Almost 70 percent of TEAMS fellows are teachers, counselors, or paraprofessionals of color, which is unheard of in teacher development programs, Fernandez said. It’s that proven track record that recently resulted in a three-year funding renewal of more than $600,000 from AmeriCorps Professional Corps, TEAMS’ federal funding source.
The extension comes at a time when many programs face federal cuts, Fernandez said. “It really shows the quality of our program, that we received full funding in such a competitive year.”
On top of building classroom equity in an environment where 33 percent of students are minorities compared to just 13 percent of teachers, students of color tend to have higher academic, personal, and social performance when taught by teachers from their own ethnic groups, studies show.
Created in 1998 to help stop, or at least slow, the revolving door of young minority educators leaving the profession, TEAMS recruits new minority teachers from colleges and universities in California and Washington, while also working with non-credentialed teachers, counselors, and paraprofessionals already in urban schools to provide training and financial support as they seek teacher certification.
The program focuses on training and mentoring teaching fellows to work in America’s toughest schools where turnover is greatest due to factors such as declining enrollment, poor funding, and a shortage of resources and experienced teachers. An estimated one-third of beginning teachers leave the profession within three years; half leave within five years, according to national statistics.
Even worse, the flight of qualified teachers from the most difficult schools is compounded when school districts are left to fill vacant positions with non-credentialed teachers, resulting in some of the most needy students being taught by the least experienced teachers. “It’s a vicious circle,” said TEAMS coordinator Julian Lute.
TEAMS uses a variety of methods to attract recruits, from financial aid and long-term mentoring to scholarships that pay fellows to lead service-learning projects in local schools. Perhaps the biggest incentive is the average $4,700 fellows receive annually for two years to help pay for current or future college or graduate school tuition, job training, or to repay existing student loans.
For Wendy Ginsburg, a 2004-06 TEAMS fellow, leading a service-learning project allowed her to work alongside fifth-grade teachers and students at Leonard R. Flynn Elementary in San Francisco. There, she created a curriculum to educate students and families about the dangers of a popular candy that contained lead. The class conducted a candy consumption survey, tallied data, and partnered with the San Francisco Department of Public Health to educate families on the health risks.
“I believe that the out-of-class curriculum was more beneficial to students than anything that could have been accomplished with a book in a classroom,” said Ginsburg, who is pursuing a master’s degree in teaching at USF.
- Originally posted July 22, 2008 - 
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