Teacher Education Pipeline Model
Professional Development School Program
STEP-UP (Summer Teacher Education Partnership for Urban Preparation) is a four-week summer program for Junior and Senior Education majors. STEP-UP Fellows live, teach, intern and attend seminars in LIttle Village during a stipend paid urban experience. For more information or to apply, visit forms and applications by clicking here.
Illinois State University, Chicago Public Schools and City Colleges of Chicago have partnered to establish a pipeline of qualified teachers for high-need schools. The Chicago Teacher Education Pipeline will work to increase urban teacher recruitment and improve urban teacher retention through mentoring and support.
More than 700,000 new teachers will be needed in high-poverty urban districts in the next 10 years (NCES 1998). In addition, nearly 50 percent of all new teachers in urban districts leave the profession during their first five years of teaching (NCREL 2002). With fewer teachers entering the field than leaving, this gap will continue to widen. The mentoring and support programs implemented through the Chicago Teacher Education Pipeline will reverse this trend and improve outcomes for new teachers in urban schools.
While America’s schools are becoming more diverse, its teaching workforce is moving in the opposite direction. Without intervention, the percentage of minority teachers is expected to shrink to an all-time low of 5 percent by 2008 (NCES 1998). The Chicago Teacher Education Pipeline will provide Chicago Public Schools with a continuous supply of well-trained multicultural teachers, and in doing so will provide the nation an exemplary model for urban teacher recruitment, teacher education and mentorship.
To accomplish the aforementioned goals, the Chicago Teacher Education Pipeline project will focus on recruitment, urban teacher preparation, community-based clinical experiences, faculty development and research.