Data sought on what works for teachers

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Posted June 23rd, 2011 by Charlotte Draper No Comments »

Adolfo Mercado is beginning to feel an urge to collect things. Now into his sixth year as director of Breakthrough Sacramento, Mercado’s cramped office on the campus of Sacramento Country Day School is full of political cartoons, memorable quotes and gifts he has received from students over the years.

But what he really wants to add to his collection now isn’t nearly as sentimental, but might be more useful: Mercado wants data.

More specifically, he’s looking to collect data not only concerning how the college and high school students who volunteer for the Breakthrough Collaborative can improve their teaching methods, but also what methods are most effective in preparing the teachers to teach.

Founded by Lois Loofbourrow and piloted at San Francisco’s University High School in 1978, Breakthrough (formerly known as Summerbridge) uses a “students teaching students model” in a college-preparatory program for middle school students from under-resourced schools.

On Monday morning, 67 rising seventh- and eighth-graders will be greeted by 24 college and high school students who will guide them through a rigorous six-week program in math, literature, writing, social studies and science.

Some recent changes to the teaching structure are making waves in the educational community, and could end up helping facilitate some of Mercado’s drive for more data.

Breakthrough recently announced a partnership with the nonprofit organization Teach for America, ostensibly to “introduce Breakthrough Collaborative participants to the opportunity to enter education full time after school through Teach for America and encourage them to apply to our teacher corps,” according to TFA’s Communications Director Rebecca Neale.

Additionally, student teachers working at any of Breakthrough’s 33 national and two international sites will follow a national curriculum prescribed from the national headquarters in New York, a departure from years past when teachers created individual lesson plans with guidance from “mentor” teachers.

While the new plan will likely make it easier to compare different sites on a national level, according to Mercado, some at Breakthrough Sacramento are a little nervous.

Dean of Students Molly Roy is a recent UC Berkeley graduate, and with multiple summers at Breakthrough under her belt is worried about the potential for TFA problems to infiltrate Breakthrough’s system. “I think things are maybe a little too rigid,” she said.

“The curriculum breaks teaching methods down and is helpful with training tips and the nitty-gritty details of classroom management, but TFA is a huge organization and I love the freedom and creativity Breakthrough has always had, something I hope won’t be lost.”

According to Neale, more than 200 former Breakthrough teachers have matriculated to Teach for America since the latter was created by then-Princeton senior Wendy Kopp in 1990. And the ultracompetitive TFA, which had 46,000 applicants and a 12 percent acceptance rate in 2010, is hoping the partnership attracts even more.

Zach Zappone, a rising junior at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., applied to be a Breakthrough teacher at Sacramento’s site this summer because of the collaborative’s social justice mission, something he and many of the teachers feel is a shared goal with TFA. “They (TFA and Breakthrough) both work through education to eliminate poverty,” Zappone said. “I am hoping to use this as a way to see if I want to pursue teaching in a couple of years. And at the same time, hopefully I can get one foot in the door for TFA.”

But Mercado hopes to piggyback off of TFA’s big name and prominence in educational circles to also expand the Breakthrough program.

Cuts to the California Student Opportunity and Access Programs two years ago meant the Sacramento site, which opened in 1993, lost almost a third of its operating budget.

Mercado thinks that by copying some aspects of TFA, Breakthrough will be able to attract even more attention and funding, and expand to serve even more underprivileged students nationwide. “With the current demographics, this region could easily support four or five Breakthrough sites,” he said.

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