Migrant Teachers: A Pipeline for Growing Your Own Bilingual and Bicultural Teachers

• In Event: 69.039 - Portraits of Critical Alternative Teacher Development: Framing Teacher Development for Community, Justice, and Visionaries

Abstract

This paper describes the California Mini-Corps (CMC), initiated in 1967 by the state of California, as an alternative teacher development model designed to meet the academic needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students in our nations schools. Using a CMC program database of over 8,000 CMC students and cross-referencing with the California Commission of Teacher Credentialing database, over 60 percent of past CMC alumni had earned a California elementary or secondary Teaching Credential (Butte County Office of Education, 2016). Interview data from these teachers revealed that 1) many of them are in leadership positions as principals, administrators, superintendents, university administrators and professors; 2) they teach and lead with a certain culturally proficient passion and commitment that sets them apart; and 3) they play active roles in advocating to improve public education for some of California’s students who have the highest educational needs.

Author

• Reyes L. Quezada, University of San Diego