Brian R. Evans

Recruiting and Retaining Black Teachers to Work in Urban Schools

The purpose of this article is to examine teacher preparation from the perspective of novice Black teachers. While all teachers, regardless of race, can be trained to be effective teachers of Black students, Black teachers can be more adept at motivating and engaging students of color. Six Black teachers were interviewed to determine their experiences during teacher preparation and induction. Findings revealed the teachers believed their programs were high quality and prepared them well to teach in urban spaces, but some expressed concern about the swift immersion into the classroom.

After-School Programs for Bilingual Students: Preservice Teachers’ Perspectives and Students’ Achievement

ABSTRACT We studied the process and products of developing effective tutoring programs to support Tier 2 bilingual students with a focus on teachers’ perspectives and students’ achievement to assess and teach students based on need. With the understanding that young students require individual attention to resolve specific misunderstandings, optimally without the distractions of surrounding classroom activity, after-school tutoring has propelled students forward in literacy and educational achievement. Tutoring programs can also serve as professional development opportunities for preservice and practicing teachers as they negotiate the balance between assessment and instruction for children’s individual differences in learning. This mixed-methods study involved language-into-literacy experiences using a variety of reading passages and multimedia sources. Results indicated themes in teachers’ changing approaches toward honoring language and literacy competencies of bilingual students and revealed statistically significant positive changes in students’ literacy competencies.