Education Department grants to benefit CPS teacher recruitment, training

$45 million grant to help improve teacher preparation

CPS’s institutional partners won three of 28 grants from the federal Education Department.

October 14, 2009

Chicago Public Schools will be a major beneficiary of almost $45 million in Teacher Quality Partnership grants announced recently by the U.S. Department of Education.

The grants will allow the colleges and universities with which CPS partners to transform and improve traditional teacher preparation and residency programs in high-needs CPS schools.

Chicago Public Schools works with the grant recipients in the training, hiring and placement of teaching staff throughout the nation’s third-largest school district.

CPS’s institutional partners won three of 28 grants from the federal Education Department. Those grants represent about 18 percent of the total grant dollars awarded nationwide this year.

The awards and partnerships include:

Almost $16.4 million over five years has been designated for the Chicago Teacher Pipeline Partnership, which includes CPS and four Chicago-based universities: Loyola, National-Louis, Northeastern Illinois and University of Illinois at Chicago. The grant aims to transform candidate recruitment and selection, teacher preparation, and teacher development and support. The CTPP universities are largest suppliers of CPS elementary school teachers; together, they awarded about 27 percent of bachelor’s degrees earned by CPS elementary school teachers in 2007. The CTPP partnership is expected to have a great influence on the quality of new teachers District-wide.
Almost $11.9 million over five years to Illinois State University’s Chicago Teacher Education Pipeline Programs and Partnerships, which together with CPS and seven community partners engages in the TEACHER + PLUS project. This initiative responds to the pressing need in Chicago in such instructional areas as Bilingual/English Language Learners, special education, math and science. The TEACHER + PLUS project will enable at least 322 teachers who receive their degrees from ISU to provide high-quality, inquiry-based forms of instruction at high-needs schools. All of the clinical and course work in the initiative will be conducted at CPS schools in three targeted African-American and Hispanic communities. Courses will be redesigned so they are aligned with and responsive to the needs of urban schools.
Almost $16.6 million over five years was awarded to National-Louis University’s Institute for Urban Education and the Academy for Urban School Leadership for their Urban Teacher Residency training program. Under that program, National-Louis and AUSL partner with Chicago Public Schools. The grant will expand and improve the teacher residency program, an intensive, full-year apprenticeship with a mentor teacher at a Chicago public school, in which graduates earn their Illinois teaching certification and a master’s degree through National-Louis. Through this grant, National-Louis and AUSL aim to improve student achievement in Chicago by expanding the number of well-qualified and diverse teachers this program can provide to CPS, and by improving the residency program to better prepare teachers for their challenging work in chronically failing schools.

Staff from the CPS Department of External Resources worked with National-Louis University’s Advancement Office, AUSL and the Council of Chicago Area Deans of Education, which will advise the Chicago Teacher Pipeline Partnership project. Staff from the CPS Department of Human Resources worked with Illinois State University on that proposal.

The grants are in addition to formula funding states receive to improve teacher quality. Another round of the federal grants will be announced next year.