Some Details on the Teacher Quality Partnership Grant Recipients

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED

Last week the Department of Education announced the recipients of the $100 million in Teacher Quality Partnership grants made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). This program aims to build partnerships between local school districts and teacher colleges to improve and reform teacher training programs. According to the press release, 12 grants were awarded. Seven of those grants will go towards teacher residency programs, three will focus on more traditional licensing programs, and two will do both. Additionally, five grants will also focus on training for school leaders like principals and superintendants.

President Obama has been voicing support for programs like these since the campaign trail. Though little rigorous evidence exists as to their efficacy, anecdotal evidence supports programs like teacher residencies and other alternative induction and training programs.

Beyond this limited information available in the press release, however, the Department of Education provides almost no details on any of the funded program. To remedy this, Ed Money Watch has done some digging to collect more details on each of the grants. The information we collected, as well as links to further details, can be found below. We will be sure to update this as we get more information.

California State University – Northridge (California)
Project Name: Teaching Residency Program in Special Education

According to Congressman Brad Sherman’s website, this $8,454,548 grant will address “the critical shortage of qualified special education teachers who are prepared to serve in high-need schools. The project is a partnership between the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and the Colleges of Education and Humanities at California State University, Northridge. The program will recruit a total of 150 special education teachers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, prepare them to serve children with disabilities in high-need schools, and evaluate the impact of the project on new teachers and their students. The program will offer an 18-month credential or master’s degree residency program in Special Education, and a 2-year induction program.”

Denver School District No. 1 (Colorado)
Project Name: Denver Teacher Residency

This residency program was awarded a grant of $8,204,269. No specific information on the Teacher Quality Partnership grant proposal is available. However, information on the Denver Teacher Residency program can be found here.

Iowa Department of Education (Iowa)
Project Name: Iowa Teacher Quality Partnership Project

According to the Iowa Department of Education, this $9,035,380 grant will be used to “partner with the UNI, Stanford University School Redesign Network, and UCLA's National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST)…[to] work together to define emerging attributes of effective teaching and integrating those attributes into both teacher preparation programs and continued professional development for beginning and experienced teachers.” Additionally, the grant work will include the “use of innovation and technology in Iowa's classroom and UNI's educator preparation program. UNI teacher preparation students will be able to gain even more hands-on learning experiences by joining various classrooms of rural high-needs schools in Iowa through online technology such as video conferencing. The intention is to broaden this effort and make it available to all accredited teacher preparation programs in the state.”

Governors State University (Illinois)
Project Name: Chicago Southland Region Teacher Quality Partnership Project

According to a Park Forrest, IL news source, the $7,172,773 grant will provide “GSU alternative certification students…with mentor-teachers in south suburban classrooms for a one-year residency period. They will be paid $30,000 during the residency period, with that salary coming via the federal grant. Teacher candidates will work in high-need, low-income school districts and, after certification, will agree to teach for three years in the partner district. The grant provides funding for about 170 residency placements over the next five years. Partnering school districts are Calumet Park 132, Posen-Robbins 143.5, Dolton-Riverdale 148, Harvey 152, West Harvey-Dixmoor 147, Lincoln 156 in Calumet City, Ford Heights 169, Thornton High School 205, and Bloom High School 206. The nine districts represent 21,000 students in 37 schools. All have heavy concentrations of minority and low-income students.”

University of Chicago (Illinois)
Project Name: University of Chicago Urban Education Institute's Urban Teacher Education Program

According to a University of Chicago release, the $11,584,312 grant will expand the existing teacher residency program and “result in improved curriculum to align with the needs of Chicago Public Schools, the addition of a robust secondary mathematics and science certification program, enhanced recruitment strategies to further improve the selectivity and diversity of candidates, extended new teacher induction activities, and solidified school partnerships. Chicago UTEP will work with the Consortium on Chicago School Research to evaluate and measure the impact of their model. When the work supported by the grant is fully operational after five years, the Chicago UTEP program will be serving approximately 300 aspiring and novice teachers in various stages of development.”

Boston Plan for Excellence (Massachusetts)
Project Name: Boston Teacher Residency Partnership

According to information shared with Ed Money Watch by Boston Teacher Residency staff, this $15,024,128 grant will be used to "increase the number of effective teachers the Boston Teacher Residency Partnership (BTRP) prepares to teach in Boston Public Schools (BPS).  This will be accomplished by recruiting and intensively preparing teacher candidates in high-need areas identified by BPS including special education, English as a second language, science, mathematics and early childhood with a focus on attracting teachers from underrepresented populations. Specifically, the BTRP plan is to prepare a total of 548 teachers, representing more than one-third of the district's total hiring needs and including 105 new special education teachers; 102 new teachers of English language learners; 175 math and science teachers; and 48 early childhood teachers.  This project scales up the already well-established Boston Teacher Residency (BTR) program and adds an emphasis to the preparation of K-2 teachers by including Wheelock College in the existing partnership of BTR, University of Massachusetts Boston and BPS."

University of North Carolina – Greensboro (North Carolina)
Project Name: Project ENRICH

According to a University of North Carolina – Greensboro release, the $6,948,132 grant will be used to expand Project ENRICH into the Winston/Forsyth Schools. With the grant “UNCG will recruit and train teachers, including about 20 resident teachers per year who will earn master’s degrees and get hands-on training working with experienced teachers in the school system. Residents will be selected to mirror the diversity of the student population, and must have an undergraduate degree in a content area and no teaching credential.” The program aims to “prepare approximately 475 teachers during the five year period (100 residents in math, science, special education and English Language Learners and 375 undergraduates in a variety of fields that include elementary, middle and secondary teachers from multiple areas: math, science, English, social studies, foreign languages as well as music, art, physical education and literacy).”

Questa Independent Schools (New Mexico)
Project Name: Land of Enchantment Teacher Quality Partnership

According to a press release from Senator Jeff Bingaman’s website, the $8,680,166 grant “will fund 50 special education teachers and 50 principals over the next five years in the Chama Valley, Dulce, Cuba, Jemez Mountain, Mesa Vista, Questa, Peñasco and Central Consolidated (Kirtland) school districts… The Land of Enchantment Teacher Quality Partnership will use this funding to support a special education teacher residency program, which will recruit recent college graduates who will be paired with a special education mentor in the classroom.  The grant will also allow the schools to develop and implement a school leadership program to prepare candidates for careers as principals and superintendents.  The funding will allow teachers in the districts to take a one year leave from teaching and explore an administrative internship.” 

Lehman College (New York)
Project Name: Mathematics Achievement with Teachers of High-need Urban Populations

According to a City University of New York release, the $7,662,612 grant will “prepare elementary teachers who are highly qualified to teach English language learners and students with special needs and to improve the mathematical understanding and performance of all students… MATH-UP (Mathematics Achievement with Teachers of High-need Urban Populations) aims to prepare 125 teachers in grades 1-6 who will bring their new skills and approaches into the classrooms of 18,750 South Bronx students. The grant will provide a diverse group of teachers with a rigorous graduate program that is content-enriched, school-focused, needs-based and integrated with professional development.”

National Math and Science Initiative, Inc. (Texas)
Project Name: The Teacher Preparation Reform Consortium

According to a National Math and Science Initiative press release, the $2,252,355 grant will be used to “implement the highly-regarded UTeach program at Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio… Created originally by The University of Texas at Austin, UTeach enables college students to graduate in four years with deep content knowledge in a math or science major as well as teaching certification.  Ninety-two percent of UTeach graduates from the UT-Austin program become teachers, and 82 percent are still in the classroom after five years.”

Virginia Commonwealth University (Virginia)
Project Name: Richmond Teacher Residency Program

This residency program was awarded a grant of $5,796,491. No specific information on the Teacher Quality Partnership grant proposal or the Richmond Teacher Residency Program is available.

Heritage University (Washington)
Project Name: Heritage 105: Heritage University and ESD 105 Collaborative

According to the Yakima Herald, the $9,017,011 grant will provide teachers in training with “hands-on classroom training upon entry into the teaching program, instead of near the end. Sixteen teaching-learning teams will be developed and placed at three area school districts, which have yet to be named. The teams, consisting of three students and a seasoned teacher, will be divided into eight separate groups of graduate and undergraduate students. Team members will work together to instruct a class and prepare lesson plans — enabling them to better teach the material and connect with their students, said McGuigan, project director for Heritage 105. Once a week, the student teachers will also receive training from Heritage faculty and staff at ESD 105, who specialize in such areas as reading and math instruction. The student teachers will follow their classes from year to year and will train their replacements when they graduate from Heritage.”