The past few years at TeachingWorks have been productive and rewarding. We launched two teacher education program networks to strengthen professional preparation for teaching in Michigan and Maryland. We formed new partnerships, including one with Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, while continuing to foster our existing relationships with organizations like the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and our various partners in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Teacher Preparation Transformation Centers Project.
This report provides an update on these developments, as well as many others. In 2017, we received a $3 million gift from the Michael and Susan Jandernoa Foundation to launch a system of professional development, training, and support for mathematics teachers in Grand Rapids, Michigan, area schools. The work there coincides seamlessly with our School-Based Teacher Education Partnership, a collaboration between TeachingWorks, teacher educators at Grand Valley State University, and mentor teachers within Grand Rapids Public Schools. We also received two grants from the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation to support teacher educators within the California State University system to design and implement practice-based units in their mathematics methods courses and have now expanded the partnership to include methods instructors in English language arts.
Through this collective work, we have taken significant strides in achieving our mission of improving the preparation and support of beginning teachers across the country. Preparing the next generation of educators to use skillful teaching as a lever for justice will benefit children and communities everywhere. I hope you find this report both insightful and inspiring, and that you continue to follow along with our progress at our website, teachingworks.org.
Deborah Loewenberg Ball
Director, TeachingWorks