Fast-track program combats math, science teacher shortage
FALL RIVER - The teacher asked one boy to sit in his assigned seat. He told another to turn around and stop poking classmates with a pencil. And while reviewing homework assignments, which required students to log how they spent the hours of their day, he remarked with a chuckle, "I wish I could get 10 hours of sleep."
Just two years ago, Sean Duffy, 29, was a laid-off hydraulics salesman. Now, he's in his second year at Durfee High School, trying to awaken a class of ninth-graders to the mysteries of scientific notation and unit conversions.
Duffy is one of 14 new teachers, mostly midcareer switchers, who have arrived at Durfee since last fall as part of a new program at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth that is sending a small army of math and science teachers to Fall River and New Bedford. After a crash course in taking the qualification test, they obtain their teacher licenses and begin immediately running their own classrooms, earning full pay while still working toward their postgraduate degrees.
Although still in its infancy, the program is serving as a model for Governor Deval Patrick's statewide effort to remedy a critical shortage of qualified math and science teachers, which is particularly acute in urban districts. Under a proposal made by his education task force, about 60 teachers would be dispatched annually to schools with many low-income students.
Educators and state leaders believe that hiring and retaining top-notch teachers is critical to improving math and science achievement in urban school districts, which continue to languish, according to district and school scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exams released yesterday.
"Historically, we've found students who get involved in [math- and science-related] careers are able to point back to a teacher or mentor who gave them the encouragement and the support to pursue the sciences," said Lance Hartford, executive director of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Education Foundation. "Science teachers need to be highly trained and aware of what's happening on the industry side."
But many new teachers who possess the energy to tackle such a feat skip over the cities for the higher salaries and the state-of-the-art classrooms in the suburbs.
The Dartmouth program, known officially as TEACH! SouthCoast attempts to counter that by offering candidates free college classes, a two-year guarantee of mentoring from a veteran teacher and a university professor, and a full-time paid teaching job. Candidates, however, have to promise to stay in their classroom for three years.
Massachusetts has had mixed results over the last decade in stocking classrooms with new teachers, especially midcareer professionals who may be able to make lessons more relevant by tapping into real world experience. More than 500 unlicensed teachers were teaching math and science across the state in the 2006-07 school year because districts could not find qualified candidates, according to a state school administrators association, which analyzed the numbers.
With much fanfare, the state launched a teacher signing-bonus program in 1999 that promised recipients up to $20,000, but budget cuts a few years later killed the program while many recipients ultimately left the profession.
The state also started a summer teacher-licensing program 10 years ago to make it easier for midcareer switchers to gain credentials without having to enroll in a full-time program, but some administrators faulted the program for not providing enough preparation. Tight state finances ultimately brought the program's demise this year.
One of the biggest problems with those two programs, some educators say, was a failure to provide an adequate level of mentoring and support for the new teachers.
The UMass-Dartmouth program, which is funded by a $1.75 million federal education grant, stands apart because of the intensive mentoring it offers, said Donald McCallion, who cochairs the governor's task force on recruiting and retaining educators and serves as the executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Personnel Administrators.
"We are hopeful that these people will be math and science teachers for many years to come," McCallion said.
The newly minted teachers - up to 20 each year - are dispatched to eight schools in Fall River and New Bedford in small groups, providing them with a natural in-school support network to share lesson plans or to confide with one another after a frustrating day of unruly students.
Grouping the new teachers together is a departure from traditional teacher training programs, where graduates disperse to new schools on their own.
"I crave the feedback," said Anna Chase, 28, who is in her fourth week of teaching at Durfee. "Sometimes I go home and wonder if that was the best way to have handled something, believing there must be a better way."
Throwing the teachers into the classroom after just a summer of preparation was not the program's original intent. They wanted the teachers to spend a year as an apprentice to a veteran teacher - like those in the Boston Teacher Residency program - but the shortage of math and science teachers prompted Fall River and New Bedford schools to assign the teachers their own classes since they already passed the teacher licensing exam.
"We are not trying to cut corners, but the economy right now has forced candidates to accept teaching positions," said Carol Pelletier Radford, director of TEACH! SouthCoast.
The full-time assignments are a financial boon for the candidates, providing them a first-year teacher salary, which in Fall River is roughly $35,000. By contrast, the Boston Residency program pays apprenticing teachers about $11,000 for the year.
But the teachers have their work cut out for them at the schools. At Durfee, more than half of the 2,500 students come from low-income families in this struggling mill city, and nearly a third of students are not native speakers of English.
According to the results released yesterday, 23 percent of sophomores failed the new science MCAS exam, compared with 12 percent statewide. Although math scores have been on an upswing at the school, 19 percent of sophomores failed the latest test, compared with a 9 percent average statewide.
Duffy, who graduated from a Vermont college with dreams of being a television meteorologist, said he decided to take on the challenges of teaching at an urban school because of fond childhood memories of going into Brockton on a bus ministry and knocking on doors to get other teens to go to a Sunday school.
"Fifteen rowdy teenagers can be difficult at times," Duffy said, reflecting on his year of teaching at Durfee, "but the ones who are rowdy - if you can get through to them - that is one of the most rewarding parts of teaching." 