Third-grade Maryland teacher Ms. Hanson is surrounded by some of her most ardent admirers at Mary Harris "Mother" Jones School, a school in Adelphi focused on international learning, with students from 34 countries, speaking 36 different languages. Because Hanson, who was born in the Congo and raised in Belgium, is an alumna of Maryland's Resident Teacher Certification program, a press conference launching the Maryland Alternative Route to Certification Options, of which UMUC is a partner, was held in her homeroom. Said the school's principal Cheryl Logan of Hanson: "To watch [her] teach is like watching the finest prima ballerina or listening to the most gifted virtuoso. . . . She is proof positive that alternative recruiting methods work, given the proper supports and a rigorous standard for recruitment."

Teacher Reform in Md. Team Assignment for K-12 and Higher Ed
UMUC at the Head of the Class

By Andrea Martino

One doesn’t need a report card from the U.S. Department of Education to realize that teacher retention is barely getting a passing grade nationwide. Last year, the department predicted that between 1 million and 2.7 million new teachers would be needed nationwide by 2008. And the sweeping federal No Child Left Behind reform, signed into law in January 2002, makes the need all the more urgent.

Now, UMUC is responding to that need by assuming a central role in an innovative new program called MARCO—Maryland Alternative Route to Certification Options—that seeks to dramatically streamline the sometimes laborious and uncoordinated routes to teacher recruitment and development. This month, with a five-year, $1.8 million Transition to Teaching grant from the U.S. Department of Education in its backpack, the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) joins UMUC, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), and the Prince George’s County Public School system in a drive to provide 50 certified teachers to “high need” Prince George’s schools this fall, and a total of 300 teachers by 2007.

On January 27, the first cohort of more than 40 candidates began on its warp-speed route via cyberspace, part of the pilot program that has been dubbed MARCO–Prince George’s. At the successful conclusion of a 14-week UMUC online course of study, teacher candidates will complete a five-week internship to earn resident teacher certification in Maryland. All will begin teaching full time in the fall, and after completing one year successfully, the new teachers will receive standard professional certification.

“MARCO is a very progressive collaboration that will create a comprehensive model for teacher recruitment and development in Maryland,” said state schools Superintendent Nancy Grasmick. “I have every confidence that these partners’ work in Prince George’s County will accelerate the state’s efforts to a truly high quality means for content-strong individuals who want to become teachers to acquire certification with few barriers.”

According to UMUC President Gerald Heeger, because the University has excelled for more than 50 years at providing higher education to adult students, UMUC is specially suited to addressing this very important need. The University’s history as the largest provider of higher education to the U.S. military worldwide will do well to attract retired military personnel as well as transitioning service men and women and their spouses to teaching careers through MARCO in Prince George’s County, as well as statewide through the Troops to Teachers program.

“UMUC’s student body, the second largest in Maryland, is composed overwhelmingly of full-time, working adults,” said Heeger, “and our expertise in online education is increasingly popular as a convenient way for these students worldwide to balance work and family responsibilities. That should prove key to attracting new teachers from outside Maryland.

“We are passionate about being a university for adults and our commitment to their aspirations,” said Heeger. “We are passionate, too, about our technology leadership and our commitment to our home in Prince George’s County. That makes our participation in MARCO ideal—both for the partnership’s success and for our University.”

Grasmick explained that the project’s goals are ambitious, but achievable. “The partners plan to recruit, train, hire, and certify 300 teachers in critical shortage areas by 2007 for Prince George’s County Public Schools,” she said. “MARCO combines high-quality online and face-to-face preparation for teacher candidates and a strong on-the-job summer experience. It is critical that, once hired, new teachers receive ongoing content-based professional development and mentoring for the first three years of employment to ensure their retention.”

MARCO has focused on Prince George’s County because it is one of two Maryland districts with the lowest-performing schools—Baltimore City is the other—forcing schools to hire a great number of teachers who only hold provisional certification. About 20 percent of Prince George’s 7,750 teachers last year were provisional, double the state average of 9.7 percent, according to a state Board of Education report.

But the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) requires that all teachers teaching in “core academic subjects” in public elementary and secondary schools must be certified and deemed “highly qualified” according to NCLB guidelines. The new federal education reform law further requires school systems to inform parents if a teacher who does not meet these requirements is teaching their children. Parents would then have options to send their children to different schools.

This is problematic for Prince George’s, since about half of its schools are “high need,” meaning they are designated as Title I or have most students receiving meal benefits, despite the fact that the county has attracted the largest African American middle class in the nation. That means the county must make the grade, and fast, not an easy task since Prince George’s is the 19th largest school district in the nation and one of the most diverse, serving more than 137,000 students in 188 schools.

“There is such a disparity in Prince George’s County,” said Brenda Conley, department chair of education programs in UMUC’s graduate school, “that while we want very much to address the acute shortage of qualified teachers immediately, we also need to focus on the relationship between high poverty levels and low achievement of students.”

Conley also cited a recent Carnegie Corporation study that called teacher quality the most important predictor of student performance.

“With MARCO, we’ve laid the foundation for providing quality teachers to Prince George’s classrooms,” said county schools chief Iris Metts. “Research will show there is no other important element of improving a school district than having the best teachers. This program ensures that will happen.”

“Education is the bridge in our lives to a better life, to opportunity,” said Grasmick.. “We want that for all of Maryland’s 900,000 children.”