Academy for Teacher Excellence: Maximizing Synergy Among Partners for Promoting College Access for Latino Teacher Candidates

Abstract

This case study discusses how educational entities collaborate in meaningful ways to address teaching force representation and shortages in critical fields for diverse populations in urban education settings. The authors examined how the role of a federally funded program, Academy for Teacher Excellence (ATE), at a Hispanic Serving Institution in Texas is creating preschool through university level (P-20) collaborative partnerships with various community stakeholders to enhance college access for minorities, specifically Latino students pursuing the teaching profession. Constant comparison analysis of the data uncovered the following themes: (a) Building Relationships and Dialoguing across Partners, (b) Communicating Information and Outreach, and (c) Networking and Leveraging Resources. Together, these foster a collaborative partnership among entities with the intention of maximizing synergy and supporting the access, recruitment, and education of Latino teacher candidates who will become culturally efficacious teachers of all students, but specifically for the growing number of Latino students in urban areas.

Identifying Personal and Contextual Factors that Contribute to Attrition Rates for Texas Public School Teachers

“…Mathematics, science, and special education teachers appear more likely to leave the education field than other teachers (Brown & Wynn, 2007). In addition to these fields, bilingual (including English as a second language) education and foreign language are considered critical shortage areas (Flores & Claeys, 2011;Kersaint et al, 2007;U.S. Department of Education, 2011).…”

“…It is noteworthy that minority teachers, specifically Hispanic teachers, have greater retention rate than White teachers; hence, it is important to continue recruiting minorities into the teaching profession and creating strategies that ensure their retention (Flores & Claeys, 2011). Teacher preparation programs must work collaboratively with school districts to improve teacher retention by preparing all teachers to work with diverse student populations through coursework, field experiences, service learning, and professional development (Flores & Claeys, 2011).…”

“…Teacher preparation programs must work collaboratively with school districts to improve teacher retention by preparing all teachers to work with diverse student populations through coursework, field experiences, service learning, and professional development (Flores & Claeys, 2011).…”

“…As delineated by Lambert and McCarthy (2006), several approaches can be conducted to help teachers cope with these associated stressors. To date, most research focuses solely on teacher perceptions related to high-stakes testing (Flores & Claeys, 2011;Kauffman et al, 2002;Johnson et al, 2004;Tye & O'Brien, 2002) and no research has quantitatively demonstrated the actual impact on teacher retention rates. Consequently, our study provides a significant contribution to the literature by quantitatively confirming the influence of state and federal policy on teachers.…”

Challenges to Recruiting Black Males Into Early Childhood Education

“…Other researches (Flores & Claeys, 2011; Flores, Clark, Claeys, & Villarreal, 2007) explored nontraditional avenues of getting people of color into the teaching profession. Flores and Claeys (2011) investigated how paraprofessionals were offered tuition assistance, tutoring, and test-taking preparation for certification exams. Included within the study was how partnerships occurred between a community college and a university.…”