Teach for America pushes to recruit more Native teachers in Oklahoma

Amber Masters, vice president of Statewide Innovations and Partnerships for Teach for America Oklahoma, briefed the Greater Tulsa Indian Affairs Commission on the organization’s efforts to recruit more Native teachers and support Native students across the state.

Masters said the group’s central message is that “potential is equally distributed across all students, but right now opportunity is not.” She told commissioners Teach for America seeks promising leaders — often recent college graduates — to teach for two years while receiving professional development and network supports aimed at developing future education leaders.

The presentation highlighted three initiatives Teach for America has expanded in the past three years: Ignite, a virtual tutoring program for college students; targeted recruitment and professional development for Native college students; and formal partnerships with tribal nations and tribal-affiliated organizations. Masters said the organization has established partnerships with Cherokee Nation, Osage Nation and the Rosebud Nation in South Dakota.

Masters said only about 4 percent of Oklahoma educators identify as Native while roughly 12 percent of the state’s students do, and she framed Teach for America’s pipeline work as an attempt to narrow that gap. “We aspire to have more leaders, future leaders, future educators to be Native,” she said.

She gave a program-level update: Teach for America has become the largest Native teacher pipeline in the country, and in Oklahoma the organization reported more than 700 scholars engaged in tutoring, professional development and recruitment activities.

Commissioners asked how Teach for America connects with tribal scholars. Masters said the organization works directly with tribal scholarship offices and other trusted tribal channels; she described outreach that included emailing scholarship award winners and offering Ignite tutoring as an option that can satisfy some scholarship community-service expectations.

Masters invited the commission and tribal nations to collaborate and suggested attending Tulsa Native American Day. The commission chair suggested Teach for America register for a booth at the Oct. 13 event at Dreamkeepers Park; Masters said she would follow up.

The commission did not take formal action on the presentation.

Ending: Masters left contact cards and asked commissioners to share names of Native scholars and leaders to expand recruitment; she offered to follow up with interested commissioners after the meeting.