By Hugh Zimmer, Special to The Kansas City Star

The University of Missouri-Kansas City’s School of Education is addressing the current Pre-K-12 urban public education crisis in the Kansas City area through its Institute for Urban Education.

To date, the institute is far surpassing initial expectations. Since 2005, the institute has partnered with the Kansas City, Kansas City, Kan. and Hickman Mills school districts provide trained educators to teach in the partners’ schools.

Institute for Urban Education scholars have a passion for working with urban students. In exchange for their commitment to teach in urban schools for at least four years after graduation, the institute students receive a substantial four-year scholarship and complete a carefully designed curriculum that prepares them as they begin their teaching careers.

The institute training is targeted specifically to meet urban classroom conditions and includes very strong math and science preparation. Institute students – now totaling 55 with 20 more enrolled for fall 2009 – also receive significant “on-the-job experience” throughout the four-year program, accumulating 1,400 hours of teaching experience before graduation.

The institute model provides for teacher specialization, capitalizes on each student’s commitment to Kansas City and affects the community by providing schools with new teachers.

Research indicates that in the fourth to sixth year of teaching, beginning teachers reach their stride and begin to have the greatest impact on increasing student achievement. Unfortunately, research also shows that many urban teachers leave the field within three years because of inadequate preparation and discouragement.

The university program addresses these issues with support beyond graduation. During an entire teaching career, the Institute for Urban Education is there to help.

There are at least three compelling aspects of the university program. First is the opportunity to give a deserving young person, sometimes from a difficult background, an opportunity to get a fine college education that will prepare him or her for a respected career.
The second aspect is that the same student, after graduation, will go back into the urban core for four years and more to help young people and create opportunities for them to persevere despite the environment.

Third, the institute is a promising national model, with diversified investment partners, which holds great promise to make a difference in the educational and workforce challenges of our urban center.

I look forward to witnessing many graduating classes of institute students take their passion, knowledge and commitment to educational change into urban classrooms.

Hugh Zimmer is chairman of the Zimmer Companies and chairman of the University of Missouri–Kansas City Chancellor’s Institute for Urban Education National Advisory Board. He was chair of the UMKC Trustees for three years. He lives in Kansas City.