Paving the Way for Teaching

In a novel recruiting endeavor, the Los Angeles Unified School District offered conditional teaching contracts to 78 graduating high school seniors, 18 of whom also received college scholarships and jobs as teaching assistants.

The students, who have shown an interest in teaching by participating in the district’s teaching career academies, are guaranteed a job with L.A. Unified if they begin college in the fall, maintain a 2.7 grade point average and receive their teaching credentials or an equivalent by July 2011.

Although there are other district and state programs -- most notably South Carolina’s Teacher Cadets -- that develop high school students for teaching careers, none offers early contracts, according to Tom Carroll, president of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.

“This is an exciting and an outstanding innovation,” Carroll said. “It’s a ‘grow your own teachers’ strategy, in which bright, dedicated individuals who know the community well and know the students and youth in the community well could become very effective teachers in that community.”

The school district views the program as an opportunity to recruit teachers likely to remain in the district. The teacher candidates would have shown dedication to the profession and they likely would relate to their students because they come from similar social, economic and cultural backgrounds, district officials said.

“We’re trying to create a teacher pipeline in L.A.,” said Steve Brandick, director of the district’s Career Ladder office, which oversees the teaching academies and supports teaching assistants. “It is a powerful message to the student regardless of what the job market will look like in five years when they graduate from college. We’re making a commitment to them.”

Brandick said college students who have become teachers through Career Ladder have an 86% retention rate and closely follow the demographic makeup of the school district. He anticipates the early teacher contracts will yield similar results.

The teaching academies were created in 1995 to develop more bilingual teachers for the growing Latino population in the district. More than 85% of the students who received early contracts and scholarships are Latino; nearly 73% of the district’s student population is Latino this school year.

About 1,800 students in 14 high schools participate in the teaching career academies. They are expected to take the college track courses needed for admission into a four-year university. The students also take a semester-long education course, and they tutor at an elementary school for at least one hour a week.

Vivian Cruz, a senior at Bell High School who received a contract and scholarship, knew she wanted to be a teacher after tutoring at an elementary school. She said the teaching academy was invaluable.

“It helped me get a scholarship. I didn’t think I’d be able to pay for school,” said Cruz, who will be the first person in her family to graduate from high school. She plans to attend Cal State Los Angeles in the fall. The program, she said, “changed my life.”

Cruz is among the group of students in the district who received a $2,500 annual college scholarship, which includes academic assistance and a chance to work as a teaching assistant while attending college.

The academies, contracts and scholarships motivate these students to take on a more rigorous course load in high school and encourage them to finish college, district officials said.

Jacinta Brunkala, the teaching career academy coordinator at Carson High School, said the district’s hiring process can be time-consuming but that these students skip the first step.

“They’ve already had their job interview. They move to the top of the line,” she said.

Eleven of the 50 Carson seniors in the teaching academy received early contracts, and four also won scholarships.

The school district faces a shortage of special education, math and science teachers. The time and costs associated with earning a teaching credential and the rising cost of housing in Los Angeles contribute to the shortage, some say.

Linda Guthrie, secondary vice president of the Los Angles teachers union, said that offering early teacher contracts is a “wise move” but that housing still may be a deterrent for many teacher candidates.

“We think that this is an excellent partnership,” Guthrie said. “The only thing that would make it better is if we could add a housing contract to that initial teacher contract.”