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Education Commission of the States
Denver, CO
2001 Catalyst Grant
Annual Education Degrees Awarded: N/A
PT3 Abstract - PT3 Website
Project Contact:
303-299-3630
Community Colleges as a Pipeline for New Teachers:
How a PT3 Catalyst Grant is Working to Change State Policy
There's much being said about the looming teacher shortage, but relatively little being said about a potentially powerful pipeline for the next generation of teachers: the nation's 1,100 community colleges.
The Education Commission of the States (ECS), with the help of a PT3 Catalyst grant, is studying and working to influence state policies on issues surrounding the role of community colleges as part of the solution to the teacher shortage. The grant is helping ECS's Center for Community College Policy pay special attention to what states are doing to prepare community college future teachers and paraprofessionals to use technology.
The grant focuses on three grants in particular-Illinois, Texas and Nevada-with plans to expand. As a result of its involvement with the grant, the state of Illinois has embarked on an effort to develop technology modules for general education courses in science, math, communications and the humanities. Another grant partner, the Texas Association of Community Colleges, has surveyed two- and four-year colleges and found a critical need for technology integration. Several Texas community colleges are using technology to offer alternative certification via distance learning. At least one rurally isolated community college in Nevada is also using distance education to bridge the distance to an accredited program, providing the opportunity for students to earn a baccalaureate degree without leaving the community college campus.
Community colleges already serve as the entryway to higher education for one in five teachers, and they fulfill an important role in professional development for current teachers. Now a provision of the No Child Left Behind Act has community colleges scrambling to create teacher paraprofessional certification programs. Under the new law, paraprofessionals must either: complete two years of postsecondary study, obtain an associates degree (or higher), or demonstrate their knowledge and ability to assist in instructional reading, writing and mathematics through a formal state or local assessment.
For three days in September 2002, legislators and community college representatives from selected states across the nation convened in Colorado Springs to share strategies on maximizing the role of community colleges as a pipeline for new teachers. The meeting was organized and sponsored by ECS as part of its PT3 grant.
The dialogue that ECS has sparked is helping break down traditional barriers to collaboration between community colleges and four-year institutions, which have traditionally taken the lead in teacher education. ECS's Cynthia Barnes, Executive Director of the Center for Community College Policy, sees opportunities for both groups. "If community colleges do a better job of providing lower-level education courses," Barnes says, four-year institutions will benefit from a cohort of rigorously prepared students eager to pursue full teacher certification."
Beyond competitive concerns and resistance from four-year institutions, community colleges must also overcome several other serious challenges to their bid to become a "player" in teacher education.
First, they must increase the number and quality of pre-professional education courses; most community colleges offer fewer than two pre-professional courses, although a great many offer student teaching or field experiences.
Second, they must work to develop articulation agreements with institutions offering certification for teacher education programs.
Third, there needs to be a better system of sharing and communicating best practices among policymakers and both the community college and four-year sectors.
And fourth, more states need to take an active role in encouraging community colleges to play a larger role in preparing teachers.
Hazel Loucks, Illinois' Deputy Governor for Education and Workforce State, participated in the September meeting and has been working to bring about such changes in her state. "It is imperative that Community Colleges and other higher education institutions work out collaborative agreements that support students in making smooth transitions from one institution to the other," she says. "I believe that the first two years of a future teacher's education should be exactly the same no matter where the student attends, and this can not happen unless the institutions work together."
On the issue of alternative certification, as well, community colleges are rising to the challenge. According to Rey Garcia, executive director of the Texas Association of Community Colleges and an active member of the ECS consortium, these institutions are well positioned to serve career-changers who already hold bachelors degrees but aren't willing or may not be able to pursue a masters-level certification program. "In the past two years Texas has gone from having zero community college-based alternative certification programs in place to having 14," he says. "We are catering to a different student population, one that hasn't been focused on in the past."
Demographically, community colleges enroll a higher percentage of students of color than their four-year counterparts, as well as career-changers, and as such could play an important role in recruiting and training teachers of color, a group vastly underrepresented in the teaching corps.
"ECS has hit on a really important topic for education," Garcia says. "The students who enroll in community colleges are often first-generation students with a passion for learning - exactly the kinds of people we want to get into the classroom."
States across the country have been strengthening community colleges as training grounds for new teachers in a variety of ways. These include:
- developing and offering associate of arts in teaching degrees;
- creating or reinforcing partnerships between four-year institutions and community colleges;
- providing alternative teacher certification to adults who hold a baccalaureate degree;
- developing bachelor's degree programs in teacher education;
- creating or expanding four-year teacher education offerings at rural community colleges;
- facilitating student transfer from community colleges to four-year institutions;
- offering mentoring, tutoring, counseling, and "grow-your-own" programs in an effort to increase the number of teachers of color; and
- providing professional development opportunities in technology for practicing K-12 teachers.
The Tutors Today, Teachers Tomorrow (T4) program in Glendale, California, is an example of the kind of innovative programs that community colleges are creating to increase the pipeline of new teachers. In this program, students complete all their lower-division liberal arts coursework at Glendale Community College. Students may then transfer to California State University, Los Angeles, for their B.S. degree and teaching credential. Additionally, students serve in the AmeriCorps, tutoring reading in local elementary schools for 10 hours per week. (Learn about other community college programs on the ECS website)
In Michigan, Wayne State University is developing articulation agreements with five local community colleges in an effort to attract students of color into its teacher certification program. Similar articulation agreements are being worked out between two- and four-year institutions nationwide.
The ECS PT3 Grant focuses its efforts on facilitating policy changes in three states: Texas, Illinois and Nevada. By bringing policymakers and higher education leaders from these three states together, ECS is fostering dialogue and an understanding of best practices that accelerate the pace of change. Plans are underway to expand the effort to additional states.
The PT3 grant will allow ECS to conduct a 50-state environmental scan of community college participation in teacher education (click on "State Files.") Visitors to the site can also find an historical overview of each state's community college system, funding sources, higher education governance structure, and state contacts.
November 2002
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