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Monday, November 23, 2009

Teacher Program Eyes Santa Fe

By Polly Summar
Journal Staff Writer
          Teach for America is a selective college recruiting program that's known for placing its beginning teachers "in some of the hardest-to-staff schools in the country," according to a September profile of the nonprofit organization by Education Week.
        So why does the organization want to come into the Santa Fe area?
        "We can't have a 20 percent achievement gap between Caucasians on the one hand and Native Americans and Hispanics on the other," said Landon Mascareñaz, the New Mexico executive director for Teach for America, referring to achievement scores that reflect such disparities.
        Speaking to the Santa Fe school board at its Tuesday meeting, Mascareñaz said, "It's the civil rights issue of our generation." Mascareñaz said the problem pits low-income groups of all backgrounds against their higher-income peers.
        Teach for America has been in the northwestern corner of the state for 10 years, in towns like Shiprock and Crownpoint, Gallup and Laguna.
        "We have 100 teachers spread out among ... 13,000 square miles in that area," said Mascareñaz, who joined the program as a teacher in Church Rock in 2005.
        And the results there have been satisfactory enough to warrant endorsements from Lt. Gov. Diane Denish who said the program "plays a key role in closing New Mexico's achievement gap," and from state Education Secretary Veronica Garcia who said she stands "strongly behind the talented, motivated teachers that Teach for America has brought to New Mexico."
        A 2004 study by Mathematica Policy Research found that students taught by Teach for America corps members, as the new teachers are called, made more progress in a year in both reading and math than would typically be expected and attained significantly greater gains in math compared with students of other teachers, including veteran and certified teachers.
        Mascareñaz pointed to another rating of the 20-year-old program: "We have a 90 percent principal satisfaction rate."
        In Santa Fe, the possibility of the program coming into the schools beginning in 2010 has the support of Superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez and school board president Angelica Ruiz, although Ruiz said she was skeptical at first because of the financial commitment expected.
        While Mascareñaz is trying to raise $5 million to support three years of the program, which would eventually have some 130 teachers into the area — not just Santa Fe, but Española, Pecos and several Bureau of Indian Education schools — school districts are expected to provide $3,000 per teacher. Teach for America spends about $20,000 a year in training each teacher, but the corps members' salaries are paid by the school district.
        Mascareñaz had hoped to start the program with 25 teachers in Santa Fe — with another 50 some the second year, and another 50 the third year — but Gutierrez believed that 10 teachers were more feasible to start with.
        Mascareñaz is talking with funding organizations, trying to raise the money, and has until late February or early March to secure the three-year promises of $5 million.
        The McCune Charitable Foundation, based in Santa Fe, listed Teach for America in Gallup as a recipient of funding in 2006 and 2008. According to Teach for America records, nearly 75 percent of the organization's revenue stream comes from the regions where corps members are placed.
        At the school board meeting, Gutierrez said the district was writing to private foundations, and that both the city's chambers of commerce organizations are interested in the program.
        Ruiz said the turning point for her came when Gutierrez explained it was an investment in the teachers, which directly affects the quality of education. "If we invest ($30,000) in school supplies, that's here today and gone tomorrow," Ruiz said Gutierrez told her. "But long-term investments, the return on that investment is going to be longer. She convinced me on that issue."
        There will be an action item at the next board meeting, Ruiz said, on whether to approve moving forward with the Teach for America program in the Santa Fe schools.
        How it works
        Here's the way the program works: Teach for America recruits graduates from throughout the country. Last year, it received 35,000 applications for about 4,500 positions. The organization recruits from more than 350 public and private colleges including, last year, accepting eight people from the University of New Mexico and two from New Mexico State University.
        Once selected, the corps members go through 30 hours of independent work and observation of experienced teachers, then attend an intensive five-week training institute and a regional orientation to the schools and communities where they will be teaching.
        While at the institute, the corps members teach in summer school programs, receive feedback from veteran teachers, and complete a regimen of seminars and practice sessions.
        Once the corps members are hired by school districts, they're observed by full-time instructional coaches on Teach for America's staff. The teachers work with these coaches on problem-solving to improve their skills and accelerate student progress toward goals.
        Teach for America provides its teachers with "tool kits" of sample assessments, standards and teaching resources customized for their grade level, subject and district. The teachers also have access to other corps members and alumni Web sites hosting resource exchanges.
        At the same time, the teachers work with regional universities toward full teacher certification. In New Mexico, the schools include Western New Mexico, the University of New Mexico and Santa Fe Community College.
        Mascareñaz said the group anticipates also trying to work with other schools like Northern New Mexico College in Española.
        Race issues
        But Mascareñaz still faced some questions from school board members Tuesday. Frank Montaño wanted to know about the number of teachers of color. "Our district is 60 percent of color," he said.
        Mascareñaz said 30 percent of the corps members are people of color. "We think we can attract a lot of those individuals to the Santa Fe area," he said. "We can't guarantee a certain percentage, but we're going to do our best. We send people where they want to go."
        Board member Barbara Gudwin wanted to know how the Teach for America teachers would fit in with the teachers union. Mascareñaz said corps members are free to join, or not join, the union.
        Later Gudwin said, "I would rather hire bilingual teachers from this country than import them from Spain," part of another program the district participates in. "We do have trouble attracting bilingual teachers."
        Gutierrez said the district has enough vacancies every year that hiring Teach for America teachers would not take jobs away from local people who want teaching jobs.
        According to the district's human resources department, there were about 15 teacher vacancies as of Nov. 13, with some of those being part-time positions. And Gutierrez said the district has a sizable number of teachers retiring every summer.
        Teach for America has found that a significant number of corps members stay in the state where they teach. New Mexico is home to more than 125 Teach for America alumni.
        It's not that Teach for America believes its teachers are better than other teachers, Mascareñaz said. "My mom is a teacher, my sister is a teacher — they didn't go through Teach for America," he said. "But they realize there's a reason to get more great teachers out there. This isn't about denigrating anyone. It's about getting more great people in the classroom. We're looking for people with that fire in their belly."
       

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