President Obama’s first major education speech since taking office, in which he laid out a plan to make America’s education system “the envy of the world” again, stressed the need to recruit, prepare, and retain excellent teachers in our nation’s schools.
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Professor Susan Mintz is looking to mint new teachers from career changers with the Leonore Annenberg National Teaching Fellowship, a new one-year education program that will provide a $30,000 stipend. |
“From the moment students enter a school, the most important factor in their success is not the color of their skin or the income of their parents, it’s the person standing at the front of the classroom,” he said.
The Leonore Annenberg Teaching Fellowship program that begins at UVA’s Curry School of Education this summer should put Obama’s rhetoric into action. It’s currently seeking recent grads and career-changers with strong academic records and bachelor’s degrees in math, science or Spanish to teach in underserved secondary schools for three years. In exchange, the program will fund an up-front year of graduate study at the Curry School, a $30,000 scholarship.
Similar to the Teach for America model, the Annenberg Teaching Fellowships get outstanding students into high-need teaching positions, while branding the profession with some added prestige. The program was developed by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation to be the “Rhodes Scholarship” of teaching.
But, says Curry School Professor Susan Mintz, Annenberg Fellowships put a greater emphasis on educating would-be teachers. “Instead of quick training and a short time in the classroom, Fellows get high-quality teacher education that will help them become long-term professionals,” Mintz says.
UVA was one of four graduate programs invited to participate in the program, which was paid for by the Annenberg Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Leonore Annenberg, the lifelong education and arts philanthropist after whom the fellowship is named, died this month at the age of 91.
With many in the Charlottesville community out of a job, Mintz hopes to see local career-switchers apply.
“I keep hearing about people losing their jobs,” she says. “With your life experience, knowledge and skills, and personality, do you want to be in the classroom?”
According to Obama, “if you want to make your mark with a legacy that will endure—then join the teaching profession. America needs you.”
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