The Associated Colleges of Illinois’ (ACI) Center for Success in High-Need Schools seeks to close the achievement gap between low-income students and their more affluent peers by providing a key ingredient for success: excellent and diverse teachers for high-need schools. The work of ACI’s Center is intended to inform practice in high-need schools nationwide and to help guide the policy community toward successful solutions to the most pressing challenges facing K-12 education.
Since it was established in 2004, ACI’s Center for Success in High-Need Schools has developed and supported programs that have helped more than 300 adults begin new teaching careers in high-need schools; provided more than 700 teacher candidates with clinical experiences in high-need schools; and more than doubled the number of alumni from ACI member institutions who choose to teach in schools serving our neediest students.
RATIONALE: ACI’s Center focuses on teachers because current research shows that effective teaching can overcome the deficits of poverty. Unfortunately, schools serving low-income students often suffer the worst shortages of qualified teachers and the highest teacher turnover rates.
The Associated Colleges of Illinois is uniquely qualified to help improve teaching and learning in high-need schools. Teacher preparation is a core competency at ACI’s 23 member colleges and universities, which enroll more than 55,000 students and graduate nearly 3,500 new teachers each year. Illinois’ high-need schools seek out these new teachers for their deep knowledge of content and pedagogy; because they remain in the profession at nearly twice the rate of other teachers; and because ACI member colleges motivate students not just to work – but to serve society.
STRATEGIES: ACI’s Center for Success in High-Need Schools pursues five strategies designed to transform the way in which teachers for high-need schools are recruited, prepared, and retained:
- Increase the number and diversity of qualified teachers in high-need schools by attracting talented and diverse candidates to teaching – both to relieve the shortage of teachers in schools serving our neediest students and to create a teacher corps that more closely mirrors the demographics of Illinois’ student population.
- Strengthen teachers’ content knowledge in core competencies, such as math, science, and reading, by bringing teacher educators and arts and sciences faculty together to increase the substantive expertise teachers bring to their students.
- Develop model curricula addressing the specific challenges of high-need schools by funding projects that provide ongoing, real-world clinical experiences and that enhance teacher candidates’ cultural competence; reduce prejudice; build understanding of socioeconomic issues that impact learning; and deepen knowledge of pedagogies that help close the achievement gap.
- Encourage teachers’ long-term commitments to high-need classrooms by establishing communities of principals, faculty, and staff at high-need schools, and by supporting new teachers with professional development that strengthens key areas of professional practice.
- Disseminate a new body of knowledge on improving teaching and learning in high-need schools through diverse media and events – inspiring others to replicate our successful models and develop their own creative solutions to the challenges of K-12 classrooms serving our neediest students.
HOW IT WORKS: ACI’s Center programs are implemented through partnerships among ACI member colleges and universities, K-12 schools and educators, businesses, and not-for-profits. Center partners share the belief that helping low-income students make the grade today can create a more productive society and ensure America’s future in the global economy. ACI’s Center is advised by ACI’s Education Council, a group of leading educators, business leaders, and policy experts whose observations and suggestions enrich and broaden ACI’s perspective on the issues. ACI’s Center for Success in High-Need Schools is funded by major grants from the U.S. Department of Education through its Teacher Quality Enhancement-Partnership Program, Teacher Quality Enhancement-Recruitment Program, Fund for Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, and Transition to Teaching Program. Additional support is provided by The Chicago Community Trust, Citigroup, the Illinois Board of Higher Education, State Farm Insurance Companies, and Washington Mutual.
RESULTS: Already, ACI’s Center for Success in High-Need Schools is posting impressive numbers:
- 214 new teachers of bilingual education, math, and science have launched careers in high-need schools, thanks to Center-supported Alternative Certification Partnerships, and more than 300 candidates are now working toward certification through these partnerships.
- Nearly 125 education majors from ACI institutions have participated in ACI's Diversity at the Blackboard Internship, which provides hands-on experience in high-need schools. These internships are persuading many candidates to seek teaching positions in hard-to-staff, urban schools.
- Eleven ACI colleges and universities have dramatically transformed teacher education curricula to provide aspiring teachers with coursework that cultivates cultural competence, reduces prejudice, and advances equitable pedagogy, and with real-world experiences in high-need schools.
- More than 700 teacher candidates at ACI member institutions have benefited from clinical and student teaching experience in high-need schools. The annual number of placements in high-need schools has more that doubled since the Center’s benchmark year in 2002-3.
- Nearly 300 teachers from metropolitan Chicago and Metro East St. Louis have benefited from ACI’s Teacher Induction Academy since 2002. These teachers are building supportive learning communities for professionals committed to our neediest schools.
- ACI’s Center has published a quarterly online journal, Success in High-Need Schools, since 2005, and our website, www.successinhighneedschools.org, has received nearly one million hits.
Now, as ACI’s Center for Success in High-Need Schools moves toward its fifth anniversary, ACI has launched an in-depth study of the impact of Center initiatives. This study will identify the systemic changes occurring in teacher education programs at member institutions and assess the impact teachers prepared through Center-supported partnerships are having in high-need schools. The study will explore these key questions:
- Are ACI member colleges and universities graduating more teachers who take assignments in high-need schools?
- How many ACI member colleges are offering coursework and practical experiences that target high-need schools; what is the scope of these programs; and what types of programs are most likely to influence graduates to choose careers in high-need schools?
- Are ACI member colleges and universities offering programs that target high-need schools graduating more teachers who choose to work in high-need schools compared to those that do not offer such programs?
- How do alumni of ACI teacher education programs perform in high-need classrooms once they begin teaching? Are they successful in improving student achievement as defined by state standards? ACI’s Center for Success in High-Need Schools will release the results of this study in 2009.
