The New Teacher Project

I will be teaching as a Teaching Fellow in a program that is part of a larger, nationwide effort at improving schools called The New Teacher Project (TNTP).

From the website: “Founded by teachers, The New Teacher Project was formed in 1997 to address the growing issues of teacher shortages and teacher quality throughout the country. In its first year, TNTP embarked on three projects to create and implement high-quality alternative route to certification programs to bring new streams of accomplished individuals into hard-to-staff urban schools. Since then, TNTP has worked with more than 200 school districts and become a nationally-recognized authority on new teacher recruitment and hiring. “

The programs under TNTP are similar to Teach for America, and in fact many of the founders of TNTP came from Teach for America. These programs are aimed at recruiting professionals from diverse backgrounds, as well as recent college graduates who do not have teaching experience or education degrees but who would like to become teachers. (That's me!)

The exact details may vary by location, but they are all fairly similar. Once an applicant is accepted into the program, he or she spends one summer training (think teacher boot camp), and is then allowed to teach full-time in a real classroom once the school year begins. Participants get full a salary and benefits from the school district. While doing this, the new teachers are granted “resident teaching certification”, which is a temporary status. Participants also attend evening and weekend classes and seminars that allow them to complete the educational requirements need for a full teaching certification. For me, this takes 2 years. New teachers are also given support from mentors and more veteran teachers, and they get regular feedback on their performance.

If this is something that is of interest to you, I highly recommend this article in the Feb. 2010 issue of the Atlantic.