Supplemental Materials
Meeting National Education Needs: The Leonore Annenberg Teaching Fellowship PDF
Details of the Leonore Annenberg Teaching Fellowship PDF
Programs at Participating Institutions PDF
New York Times:
Foundation Hopes to Lure Top Students to Teaching PDF
Washington Post:
To Draw Top Teachers to Troubled Schools, Foundation Will Offer $30,000 Stipends PDF
Woodrow Wilson News & Publications
FOR RELEASE: December 19, 2007
CONTACT: Beverly Sanford, (609) 452-7007 x181
Robert Johnston, CommunicationWorks, (202) 778-8313
Program Inquiries, (609) 452-7007
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STATES, FOUNDATIONS LAUNCH WOODROW WILSON FELLOWSHIPS TO IMPROVE TEACHER PREPARATION AND RECRUITMENT
Initiatives Designed To Attract Top Candidates for High-Need Schools
PRINCETON, NJ—To help overhaul teacher education and encourage some of the nation’s most talented college graduates to seek long-term teaching careers in high-need classrooms, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation launched today an unprecedented teaching fellowship program at the state and national levels funded initially at $17 million by leading philanthropies.
The Foundation’s 50-state fellowship strategy will begin in Indiana, where Fellows will receive a $30,000 stipend to complete a year-long master’s program and must teach math and science in high-need schools in Indiana for three years. Lilly Endowment Inc. is providing $10 million to launch the program, which is being announced today in Indianapolis by the Foundation at a news conference with Endowment officials and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. Ohio and other states are expected to launch Woodrow Wilson programs beginning next year. Initially the Indiana fellowship program will prepare 80 new math and science teachers for the state each year—roughly one-quarter of the total number of Indiana teachers now being prepared in those fields—with aspirations to scale up to 400 per year.
In addition to the state-based model being started in Indiana, Woodrow Wilson also announced the creation of a national “Rhodes Scholarship” for teaching. The new Leonore Annenberg Teaching Fellowship, funded by the Annenberg Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York, will provide a $30,000 stipend and one year of graduate education at four of the nation’s top teacher-education programs to candidates who agree to teach for three years in low-income schools. The participating education programs are based at Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, and University of Washington.
Both the state and the national versions of the strategy focus on four goals:
- Transform teacher education—not just for Fellows but for the universities that prepare them, other teacher candidates in the same programs, and the high-need schools where they are placed as teachers;
- Get strong teachers into high-need schools. Indiana has chosen to focus on attracting math and science teachers, though other states may choose different subject areas;
- Attract the very best candidates to teaching through fellowships with well-known names and high visibility; and
- Cut teacher attrition and retain top teachers through intensive clinical preparation and ongoing in-school mentoring, provided by veteran teachers and supported by able principals.
“Taken together, these fellowships form an innovative new strategy for building the teacher workforce of the future, and I commend the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation for creating them, and these important philanthropies and Governor Daniels for supporting them,” said former North Carolina Gov. James B. Hunt, Jr., an advisor to the project. “The state fellowships address issues of quality and scale, enabling each state to recruit, prepare, place, and retain thousands of exceptionally well prepared teachers from diverse backgrounds in high-need schools. The national fellowship will lend prestige to the teaching field and encourage some of the nation’s most talented new college graduates and career changers to enter teaching.”
“The fellowships are a direct response to the nation’s most urgent education challenges: closing the achievement gap and preparing a sufficient number of highly effective teachers who can serve students in high-need urban and rural schools,” said Arthur Levine, the president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, who led a multi-year study on needed improvements in teacher education. “They are designed to develop new models for effective teacher preparation that can produce a new corps of outstanding teachers where they are needed most.”
The first Indiana and Annenberg Fellows will be named in spring 2009, begin master’s work later that academic year, and start classroom teaching in 2010. In the interim, the selected universities will enhance their teacher education programs to meet Woodrow Wilson’s standards for Fellows’ preparation.
A NEW MODEL FOR TEACHER PREPARATION IN INDIANA
The Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellowship will be open to college seniors and career-changers with outstanding undergraduate records and majors in math or science from around the nation who are willing to teach for three years in Indiana.
“Indiana was selected as the pioneering state to launch this state-based model because of the commitment to education shown by the governor and other state leaders, strong support for the program within the state’s philanthropic and business communities, and the willingness of leading universities, as well as local school superintendents, to advance exemplary approaches to teacher preparation,” Levine said.
The program will be an important part of developing the state’s workforce, according to Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels.
“We're happy to be in on the ground floor of this program. This effort is just what Indiana needs to attract top talent to the classroom. Indiana is a life sciences leader, so improving math and science education in schools that need it the most will better prepare our students to participate in Indiana's economy,” said Gov. Daniels.
Universities participating in the Indiana program—Ball State University, Purdue University, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, and the University of Indianapolis—will introduce new curriculum and outcome measures anchored by supervised clinical experience and ongoing mentoring in schools. The universities will receive 20 fellows each year and work with schools to support their graduates and track their effectiveness over time. These universities will break new ground in teacher education, reworking their programs to center on an outcomes-based, clinical approach to teacher preparation that includes three years of mentoring, as well as close connections between school teachers and university faculty, such as residencies for teachers on campus and for professors in the schools. The host institutions also will lodge responsibility for the teaching fellowship in the provost’s office and promote close partnerships between their teacher education programs and their colleges of arts and sciences.
“The time is right for this effort, and the need is great,” said Sara B. Cobb, vice president for education at Lilly Endowment. “We are pleased that four of Indiana’s top schools of education are committed to work with the Woodrow Wilson Foundation to recruit excellent candidates and enhance their educational programs so that they focus more on student learning. We look forward to seeing the eventual impact of the new approaches on the students they teach.”
A RHODES SCHOLARSHIP FOR TEACHING
The Leonore Annenberg Teaching Fellowship is meant to be the equivalent of a “Rhodes Scholarship” for teaching. The fellowships will go to outstanding recent college graduates and career-changers who agree to work in urban and rural secondary schools serving high proportions of disadvantaged students. The fellowship is funded by a $5 million grant from the Annenberg Foundation and a $1 million grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Over three years, the Leonore Annenberg Teaching Fellowship will produce 100 Annenberg Fellows, 25 at each of four of the nation’s most innovative teacher preparation programs. Fellows will receive $30,000 to pursue master’s degrees. Fellows will be selected from a diverse pool of high-caliber candidates who hold baccalaureate degrees in arts and sciences fields or related professions, like engineering or finance, and who show a commitment to high-need communities, education, and schoolchildren. College seniors and recent graduates, along with midcareer professionals, are eligible. The fellowship is named for the president and chairman of the Annenberg Foundation and a former Chief of Protocol of the United States. Mrs. Annenberg’s late husband, Walter H. Annenberg, served as Ambassador to Great Britain.
“Many of the Annenberg Foundation’s grants in education are based on the belief that teacher quality is at the heart of education reform,” said Gail Levin, executive director of the Annenberg Foundation. “The Leonore Annenberg Teaching Fellowships will strengthen the foundation’s grantmaking history by recruiting, preparing and supporting exceptional arts and science undergraduates for careers as secondary school teachers and catalysts for change in urban and rural public schools.”
“If we really want to continue to improve student achievement we have no choice but to improve teaching—the Fellowship does just that,” said Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corporation of New York. “The new program captures Leonore Annenberg’s commitment to inspiring, encouraging, and supporting the professional men and women who are shaping our next generation.”
As with the Indiana Fellowship, participating institutions were selected based on the innovative nature of their teaching preparation, existing partnerships with high-need schools, and their commitment to follow-up mentoring and rigorous evaluation. A midpoint assessment of the program’s progress and long-term tracking of the fellows will allow education schools nationwide to learn from the project.
“Schools are only as good as the teachers who serve in them,” said David Haselkorn, senior fellow at Woodrow Wilson, who directs the Foundation’s teaching fellowships. “This is a new strategy to ensure excellence in teaching, the profession that shapes America’s future.”
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The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation identifies and develops the best minds for the nation’s most important challenges. In these areas of challenge, the Foundation awards fellowships to enrich human resources, works to improve public policy, and assists organizations and institutions in enhancing practice in the U.S. and abroad.
The Annenberg Foundation is the successor corporation to the Annenberg School at Radnor, Pennsylvania, established in 1958 by Walter H. Annenberg. It exists to advance the public well-being through improved communication. As the principal means of achieving its goal, the Foundation encourages the development of more effective ways to share ideas and knowledge. The Annenberg Foundation has offices in Radnor, Pennsylvania and Los Angeles, California.
Carnegie Corporation of New York was created by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to promote “the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding.” For over 95 years the Corporation has carried out Carnegie’s vision of philanthropy by building on his two major concerns: international peace and advancing education and knowledge. As a grantmaking foundation, the Corporation will invest more than $90 million this year in nonprofits to fulfill Mr. Carnegie’s mission “to do real and permanent good in this world.”
The Lilly Endowment Inc. is an Indianapolis-based, private philanthropic foundation created in 1937 by three members of the Lilly family—J.K. Lilly Sr. and sons J.K. Jr. and Eli—through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. The Lilly family's foremost priority was to help the people of their city and state build a better life. Although the Endowment also supports efforts of national significance and an occasional international project, it remains primarily committed to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana.