Beatriz Chu Clewell and Ana Maria Villegas, The Urban Institute December 2001
Many urban and rural school districts today face a serious shortage of teachers, especially in fields such as bilingual education and special education, and in subjects such as mathematics and science. To help bring new teachers into the profession, the Wallace Reader's Digest Fund has invested over $50 million since 1989 in the Pathways to Teaching Careers program, which prepares classroom aides and returning Peace Corp volunteers to become certified teachers. In this report, Urban Institute researchers look at how the Pathways program has done. They find that it turns out teachers who, overall, are more committed, more diverse and more willing to take on challenging assignments than those emerging from traditional preparation programs. Pathways participants are seen by their supervisors, principals, and independent assessors as more effective than the typical beginning teacher in their schools. Over 81 percent of them remained in the field for at least three years after completing the program. And fully 84 percent of Pathways graduates took jobs in high-need school districts. The success of Pathways serves as further proof that drawing teachers from nontraditional pools is an effective way of attracting good people to a field in need of new and diverse talent. To see the full version, go to http://www.urban.org/education/absence-unexcused.html or order a copy by calling 877-847-7377 or emailing [email protected].
