Posted on July 16, 2003

Carnegie Corporation Names New Teachers Program Grantees

The Carnegie Corporation of New York has announced the next round of colleges and universities to participate in its Teachers for a New Era initiative, an effort to strengthen K-12 teaching by developing state-of-the-art schools of education.

Boston College, Florida A&M University, the University of Connecticut, Stanford University, the University of Texas at El Paso, the University of Washington, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee were chosen for the capability of their teacher preparation programs and their university-wide commitments to the initiative. Each school will receive a five-year, $5 million grant, which must be matched locally, to reform its teacher education program. The programs will pursue three principles: a "culture of respect for evidence" that includes analyzing graduates' effectiveness by documenting their students' achievements, an effective engagement with the arts and sciences, and a concept of teaching as a clinical practice that encompasses a period of residency following graduation.

"We know from research that teachers are the single most important factor in a student's achievement, and this design will strengthen the strategies that produce the most successful teachers," said Dan Fallon, chair of the Carnegie Corporation's education division and the designer of the Teachers for a New Era initiative.

In addition to a $30 million commitment from the Carnegie Corporation, the initiative is supported by an $11.5 million commitment from the Annenberg Foundation and $5.75 million from the Ford Foundation. The Rockefeller Foundation has made an initial contribution of $500,000 to ensure that the initiative is evaluated and the results are shared with educators across the country.