The TRUST Initiative

The TRUST (Training and Retaining Urban Student Teachers) Initiative

September 22, 2004

$3,100,000 grant awarded to the University of Alabama/Birmingham, the NUA and The College Board.

A Comprehensive Partnership to Redefine the Preparation and Retention of Teachers for Urban Settings

Too many teachers in urban schools leave their systems early in their careers. Because of this flight pattern urban schools can seem to be the proving grounds for their suburban neighbor districts. The members of the TRUST Initiative have been meeting together and in small groups to discuss the public schooling in Birmingham, Alabama for more than a year. These discussions have led to the conclusion that only a comprehensive local and national approach can provide the environment in which young teachers can first survive and then contribute to closing the achievement gaps faced by their students. We believe that in such an environment will be found the setting that can support and nurture teachers, young and old, who will then nurture students as they prepare to succeed in post-secondary education.
The TRUST Initiative will plant a unique urban teacher garden in 4 stages: 1) preparing the soil by enhancing the educational environment in two high school feeder systems within the Birmingham City schools by infusing principles of the National Urban Alliance and the College Board’s Springboard; 2) planting the seeds by recruiting students at UAB for a new urban teacher endorsement plan designed with the Alabama State Department of Education with input from the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Advisory Committee to support Birmingham Schools and aligned with the feeder schools’ programs; 3) growing the crop in a collaborative, continuous professional development environment by co-training BCS master teachers, UAB faculty, and UAB student teachers; and 4) harvesting and preserving the crop by enrolling new and early career teachers in the feeder schools in the Alabama Teacher Training and Induction Network (ATTAIN), a five-year induction plan to retain teachers. The Alabama Education Association will be a key player. The mantra of this initiative is: It takes a village to train a teacher.
Surrounding this project will be an innovative data collection and analysis system that will allow the partnership to follow student teachers through their early career and relate their performance to the performance of the students they teach.