WILLIAM PATERSON UNIVERSTY RECEIVES $10.8 MILLION, FIVE-YEAR GRANT FOR STATEWIDE TEACHER EDUCATION COLLABORATION
William Paterson University has been awarded a five-year, $10.8 million grant, the largest in University history, from the U.S. Department of Education to improve the academic achievement of K-12 students in high-need urban schools throughout the state. The grant was one of only 28 Teacher Quality Partnership awards nationwide.
The University will collaborate with Kean University and Rowan University, high-need urban school districts in Bridgeton, Camden, Jersey City, Passaic, Paterson and Union City and the LEAP Academy University Charter School of Camden, and the New Jersey Department of Education to form the Garden State Partnership for Teacher Quality. Together, the school districts enroll nearly 92,000 students, or one out of every 17 students in the state.
“Highly qualified teachers are a critical need in urban districts throughout New Jersey,” says Edward Weil, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at William Paterson University. “Through this federal grant, we will be able to work to improve the academic achievement of students in six high-need New Jersey urban school districts by recruiting and retaining highly qualified teachers. We are pleased to continue our decade-long partnership with Kean and Rowan universities in this statewide effort to improve teacher education.”
“This is an extremely important award,” says Ana Maria Schuhmann, interim dean of William Paterson’s College of Education. “It will give us an opportunity to examine and continue to refine our undergraduate teacher education programs that meet the needs of all children in New Jersey, particularly those in urban areas. We will also implement a new urban teacher residency program and study its impact on student learning.” Only seven of the U.S. Department of Education grants were for projects focusing on both reforming traditional teacher preparation programs and creating a teacher residency program.
The grant will focus on reforming pre-baccalaureate teacher preparation programs at the partnering universities by designing a clinically based program, expanding the number of school-based experiences for students to provide more hands-on preparation and offering targeted instruction in critical needs areas such as literacy, special education, working with English language learners and parent relationships.
The partnership will also create the Garden State Urban Teacher Residency Program in high need school districts to train 60 highly qualified teachers. Fifteen professional development schools will be established as part of the residency program to support and retain teachers and educational leaders in New Jersey’s most challenging urban communities. Each professional development school will have a professor in residence to mentor the resident teachers. The 18-month program will lead to dual certification in a content area and an area of critical shortage, such as special education, ESL, or bilingual education and will culminate in a master’s degree.
The grant also provides for development of a tracking system in partnership with the New Jersey Department of Education. “We want to track our residency candidates regarding whether they are retained in an urban school district, and if so, what impact they have on student learning,” says Schuhmann.
Together, William Paterson, Kean and Rowan universities graduate more than 2,500 traditionally prepared teachers each year, accounting for approximately 40 percent of all new teachers in the state. The three universities have collaborated for more than a decade to improve teacher education through joint efforts funded by previous Teacher Quality Enhancement grants in 1999 and 2004.
An information session for those interested in applying for the Garden State Urban Teacher Residency Program will be held on Monday, November 9, 2009, from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Valley Road Building Auditorium on the William Paterson University campus in Wayne. For additional information, please contact the William Paterson College of Education at dyey@wpunj.edu.
October 13, 2009
www.wpunj.edu
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