History

The University of Texas at Austin and AISD have a history of collaboration in teacher preparation. Through a Title VII grant that provided funding over a seven-year period, U.T. Austin accomplished the following:

• Preparation of an average of 20 bilingual education teachers per year
• Provision of mentoring services to newly graduated teachers during crucial first year
• Recruitment and training of mentor teachers to work with prospective bilingual teachers
• Establishment of a model whereby AISD teachers collaborated with UT faculty in providing Spanish language instruction to prospective bilingual teachers;
• Initiation of a field-based model for the teacher preparation methods courses

These innovations have remained in place beyond the termination of the Title VII grant in 2004 and, because of their proven success and strength, will remain in place for the foreseeable future.

Leaders of this collaborative identified a strong need to develop teacher-leaders within AISD who are qualified to provide continuing support and professional development to bilingual and ESL teachers throughout the district, and to encourage more practicing teachers to move into the high-need area of bilingual education/ESL. Proyecto Maestría Collaborative for Teacher Leadership in Bilingual and ESL Education project will address this goal in two ways:

1. by offering a master’s degree program for bilingual education teachers, and
2. by offering Bilingual Education/ESL institutes leading to certification as bilingual/ESL teachers.