College Students Go Back to Grade School : A former teacher has an idea to revitalize public education for free, and now 50 people enrolled at UCI are working for university credit in Santa Ana.

Juan Francisco Lara is quietly organizing an army of teachers to invade our schools. Recruits now number 50, but Lara dreams of troops totaling 9,000.

They will be the brightest and the best.

And, to top it off, they will work for free.

Sound too good to be true?

Lara doesn’t think so. He says that Orange County has thousands of bright, dedicated teachers willing to work without pay.

Many can be found on the campus at UC Irvine, where Lara says, they are being held hostage. “One resource that we have never brought to bear, the resource that we are holding hostage, is our students,” says Lara, assistant director of undergraduate admissions at UCI. “The student is the most precious resource we have that we have been unwilling to share.”

Lara, a former elementary and high school teacher, says that if UCI and other Orange County universities and community colleges would send these students into our public schools, we could revitalize our educational system. As a step in that direction, 50 UCI students are working in Santa Ana schools this quarter in a new program to help improve the quality of education, while earning university credit.

Frances Jobson, a UCI junior, is teaching English at Lowell Elementary School every Tuesday from 8 to 11 a.m. For her work at Lowell, Jobson will receive four units of credit in a social science course.

Lara estimates that the university has about 10 courses that allow UCI students to earn credit for working in California’s public schools. Although some students are future teachers, many are not. Jobson, a biological sciences major, is planning to be a veterinarian.

“I really feel I am making a difference,” Jobson says. “The kids are so willing to learn, and these teachers are really dedicated, but they have large classes. It is hard to keep focused.”

Such large classes overwhelm teachers, according to Rosie Martinez, who helps coordinate a UCI community outreach program that links the university with area schools.

“In these budgetary times this is a gold mine for the schools,” Martinez says.

Not only are local schools interested in participating in the program, but UCI students also are becoming increasingly interested in community service, according to Martinez. “Students are more interested in helping now,” she says. “They feel they want to give something back to the community.”

And school administrators are eager to invite the students into their classrooms, according to Phyllis Baker, who trains student volunteers. “I met with some principals last week,” Baker says, “and they were so excited, especially when we told them it wouldn’t cost anything.”

Although the outreach program is being coordinated under UCI’s Educational Opportunity Program, Lara, who also serves as EOP director, is quick to point out that all groups on campus are encouraged to participate.

“By spring we could be up to 500 students,” Lara says. “This will be a first step toward a minimum of 3,000 students and a maximum of 9,000 students a quarter,” he says.

To attract that many students, Lara says the university will have to offer incentives.

“The most obvious one is course credit,” he says. “But I think we have to come up with a plan that would allow undergraduates to participate in such a program to reduce a loan indebtedness while they are undergraduates. Let’s rethink it and say, ‘What the heck? Can’t a student who is going to put in 10 hours a week over a quarter have their loans reduced or forgiven?’ ”

UCI students receive four units of credit for taking a comparative culture course Lara teaches that requires each class member to work with younger pupils. Lara says his students can learn a lot by going into area schools to do field research about curriculum, policy and funding.

“Just as students are working in labs with faculty members, these students work in a public service component. I see this as a viable situation where students can resolve some questions for themselves. They can see that very little science is taught in elementary schools and ask themselves why. They can see kids coming without proper immunization and eye care and acting out and ask themselves why.”

By asking such questions, Lara hopes that today’s university students may come up with tomorrow’s answers to society’s educational problems. In the meantime, such students can certainly help in California’s overcrowded and underfunded schools, Lara says.

“In the current climate there is no prognosis that we are going to see the kind of massive infusion of resources that is going to turn around the lives of students--especially in minority areas,” he says. “Acting under the very conventional bureaucratic processes we have set up, we are never going to get enough teachers. But we do have a lot of undergraduates who with training and guidance can help.”

Lara acknowledges that the program he advocates is fraught with logistic and management problems, but he says that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. “Logistically, one could be terrorized by the nightmarish possibilities,” he says, “but I tend to be more inspired by it. I don’t know any local region that has tried to talk about a collaboration between local college students and the schools--not in this way.”

Such a collaboration could help lower the dropout rate and improve the quality of education, particularly among minority children, Lara says.

“Achievement trends in the past 10 years have slipped among Latinos and African-Americans,” he says, “and without going into why that happens we are not going to arrest the downward spiral until we stop doing business as usual and turn the system upside down.

“I’m thinking in terms of turning it upside down. Working within the system is not doing it. More money is not going to buy more teachers, and it will not reduce class size. The one way to do it is to unleash these captive hostages. Youth will save youth. Unless we embrace this approach, I don’t see the trends changing.”