NEW: RIC & Teach For America Launch Teacher Certification Partnership
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Rhode Island College’s Feinstein School of Education and Human Development and Teach For America announced today that they are launching a teacher certification program in elementary education for Teach For America’s Rhode Island teachers, also known as corps members. The one-year program will combine coursework at Rhode Island College with ongoing professional development and instructional coaching from Teach For America staff members.
Participants will teach full-time in public schools serving low-income communities while they complete the program, and will have the option to continue their studies for an additional year to earn a master’s degree in education. Ten Teach For America corps members are expected to matriculate to the program this fall.
Teach For America recruits, trains, and supports top recent college graduates and professionals who commit to teach for two years in underserved public schools and become lifelong leaders in the movement for educational equity. This year, 50 corps members will be teaching in Rhode Island public schools, reaching close to 4,000 students. They are among more than 10,000 Teach For America corps members who will be teaching nationwide, the largest corps in the organization’s 22-year history.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Rhode Island College to provide corps members teaching at the elementary level the opportunity to earn their certification at one of our state’s leading trainers of new teachers,” said Heather Tow-Yick, executive director of Teach For America in Rhode Island. “I’m so glad to see this collaboration, sparked by RIC President Carriuolo, come to fruition.”
“Helping new elementary teachers to grow and mature is an exciting new venture, consistent with our mission,” said Sasha Sidorkin, dean of the Feinstein School of Education and Human Development at RIC. “As we continue to revitalize our many existing programs, the partnership with Teach For America is helping us to learn more about non-traditional ways of preparing excellent teachers. The two organizations’ expertise and philosophies will complement and enrich each other for the benefit of the state’s most vulnerable children. I want to thank faculty members Rainy Cotti, Corinne McKamey, Jen Duerr, Ying Hui-Michael and Pat Cordeiro along with Teach For America’s Kiel McQueen, all of whom contributed to the program’s development.”
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Comments:
Joseph Fazio
2:18pm on Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Sell Out! How about a letter of apology to the RIC grads that went through your teaching degree program, took the required course work and classroom hours, did the internships, observations, student teaching, reports, journals, and passed to get a degree...a degree in teaching. Shame on you.
Aaron Regunberg
2:34pm on Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Or a letter of apology to the struggling students in these teachers' classrooms, all of whom need qualified, trained educators, not inexperienced resume-builders who are learning on those students' time.
Eloise O'Shea-Wyatt
9:14am on Wednesday, August 15, 2012
What a betrayl of those thousands of working class students who have gone to RIC to become a career teacher. Most of those students have also gone into debt to become teachers. RIC is going to take TFA scaps who will take jobs from those Rhode Island working class students, stay for their two years then leave. This is not only a betrayl of RIC students but a betrayl of the public schools students that are subject to untrained techers and to high turnover of techers in their schools. SHAME ! SHAME! SHAME! on Rhode Island College. They do not deserve another tax dollar to support this shameful act.