UTeach Expansion Recognized as President Obama Spotlights Importance of Teachers in Improving U.S. Innovation

The following is a short write-up of a teacher training program in mathematics and science education that I am part of at The University of Texas at Austin. I've been involved for about 11 of the 12 years UTeach has been in existence and have created some of it's courses, lectured about it around the country and have studied it as part of my research. MANY of the components of what I learned with the UTeach Program were incorporated into the work with the Hoboken Curriculum Committee and Curriculum Project while I was Assistant to the Superintendent of Schools in Hoboken. In this excerpt, please read how President Obama finds the UTeach Program to be a great example of research and practice coming together in STEM Education. Over 50 Universities in the United States are using this model. -Dr. Petrosino

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AUSTIN, Texas — At a special event at the White House today (Jan 6.), President Barack Obama recognized the national replication of The University of Texas at Austin's UTeach program and the supporters of that replication.

"Our future depends on reaffirming America's role as the world's engine of scientific discovery and technological innovation, and that leadership tomorrow depends on how we educate our students today, especially in math, science, technology and engineering," said President Obama.

In announcing the expansion of his "Educate to Innovate" campaign, the president applauded several new public-private partnerships that will help meet the goal of moving American students from the middle to the top in science and math achievement over the next decade.

One of those exemplary partnerships is leading to the replication of the UTeach math and science teacher-preparation program, which began at The University of Texas at Austin in 1997, to 19 universities nationally.

Thirteen universities in nine states implemented UTeach programs during the 2008-2009 school year. A newly announced second cohort of six universities includes the University of Tennessee Knoxville, Middle Tennessee State University, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, University of Texas at Arlington, University of Texas at Tyler and Cleveland State University.

View a full list of UTeach replication sites.

Support and funding for these replications come from the UTeach Institute, the National Math and Science Initiative, the Texas High School Project, the Texas Education Agency, the Greater Texas Foundation, Exxon Mobil Corporation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Texas Instruments Foundation, the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, the Tennessee Department of Education and other private philanthropy.

UTeach allows students to graduate in four years with both deep content knowledge in their major and a teaching certification. Ninety-two percent of UTeach graduates have become teachers, and 82 percent are still in the classroom after five years.

Enrollment in UTeach has nearly doubled nationally in just two years, attracting more than 2,100 math and science majors into the program.

Projections indicate that, by 2018, UTeach-like programs around the country will have produced an estimated 7,000 new math and science teachers, and those teachers will have affected more than one million students by 2017 and more than 20 million during the course of the new teachers' careers.

At The University of Texas at Austin, UTeach has graduated more than 500 students, and has more than doubled the number of math majors and increased by six times the number of science majors being certified as teachers at the university.