UC Santa Cruz gets $1.45 million to train STEM teachers

The University of California Santa Cruz has received a $1.45 million grant from the National Science Foundation for a teacher training initiative aimed at preparing future math and science teachers. The grant will be used to enhance the existing Noyce Scholarship program at UCSC, which supports students who are committed to teach math and science in local high-need school districts.

It's a known problem: there are not enough STEM teachers, partially because the salaries are low, and partially because the teaching profession has gotten such a beating lately, who wants to go into teaching chemistry in high school when you could have more prestige and money working in the private sector?

So maybe this grant will help.

As announced by the office of Congressman Sam Farr, the grant supports partnerships between UCSC, seven community colleges, and four high-need school districts to enhance recruitment and retention of new teachers in key areas of district shortages, according to Gretchen Andreasen, director of UCSC's California Teach Program (Cal Teach) and principal investigator on the grant.

The NSF grant will also support transfer students to UCSC from community colleges in the region, providing up to ten transfer students with three years of funding to attain a degree and teaching credential.

Although the grant primarily goes towards scholarships for UCSC undergraduates, it will also help fund a new UCSC program in Silicon Valley that will train and award teaching credentials to Silicon Valley tech-professionals wanting to change careers and become teachers. In addition, the NSF grant will help expand the Cal Teach internship program, which gives UCSC and community college students the chance to gain intensive K-12 teaching experience.