Paraprofessionals -- teacher aides -- are adults who are already working in the schools and have acquired valuable experience in the "trenches" of urban education. These people already know the children, the neighborhoods they come from, and the school system. With the assistance of a program that recognizes and builds upon their experience, they can become fine teachers. And they want to become teachers. In a needs survey conducted in 1995, 376 of 535 paraprofessionals expressed interest in higher education and teacher certification.

This is the third year of a three-year grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education to create a comprehensive program for these paraprofessionals. The program operates on two levels: students who already have a year or more of college experience enter the University Without Walls program and begin designing an interdisciplinary liberal arts degree program; students with few or no college credits begin at Springfield Technical Community College and transfer later.

• Springfield Technical Community College provides (1) diagnostic testing, (2) developmental instruction, (3) general, liberal arts education (and advising), and (4) lower division education courses.
• The University Without Walls (1) teaches courses in critical thinking, degree development, and writing, helps students develop interdisciplinary liberal arts degree programs, and (3) helps students develop experiential learning portfolios.
• The School of Education (1) teaches courses that satisfy professional requirements for teachers in Massachusetts and (2) supervises student teaching.
• The Springfield Public Schools will (1) help to identify potential participants, (2) identify Master Teachers who will work with participants in the classroom, and (3) arrange appropriate student teacher placements.