Title: Science and Mathematics Alliance for Recruiting and Retaining Teachers (SMARRT): Addressing the Teacher Shortage in At-Risk Schools
Abstract: The Science and Mathematics Alliance for Recruiting and Retaining Teachers (SMARRT) is a collaborative partnership pursuing aggressive strategies to recruit high quality minority teachers to teach in high-need schools in urban school districts.This partnership is dedicated to recruiting, preparing, and retaining high quality teachers with strong academic content knowledge in science and/or mathematics and a wide repertoire of research-based teaching practices including ESL strategies.The SMARRT project is designed to allow urban school districts experiencing severe shortages in mathematics, science and ESL teachers to create a pipeline of highly qualified teachers by partnering with the university to recruit, prepare, and retain teachers in high need schools.Insights, concerns, and implications for teacher education related to the SMARRT project are addressed.Despite all the educational reform activity over the past three decades, our nation currently faces one of the most daunting challenges in recent history.According to the latest U.S. Department of Education reports, the nation is facing an impending teacher shortage, especially in specific high need areas.In addition, a report by the American Association for Employment in Education, Educator Supply and Demand in the United States (2004), cites that current shortages of qualified teachers are most severe in traditional high-demand areas of special education, mathematics, science, bilingual education, and technology education-and it will worsen in the coming years.With student enrollments rising rapidly and more than a million veteran teachers nearing retirement, experts predict that over the next ten years the nation will need 2.2 to 2.4 million more teachers.(U.S.Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, 2005).The demand for teachers is rising rapidly which is greatly accelerating the gap between supply and demand.However, shortages are not in every region or school districts, and the shortages do not affect all communities equally.Teacher shortages are particularly acute in urban areas, where there is an immediate need to fill teaching positions in mathematics, science, and special education (National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, 2006).According to data from urban school districts, these districts face unique challenges because of rapidly growing student enrollments, accelerating rates of teacher retirement, class size reduction initiatives and demanding working conditions.Urban schools nationwide also educate between 40% and 50% of the students who are not proficient in English, about 50% of minority students, and 40% of the country's low-income students.Schools in urban areas also