Mayor, Teach for America to provide update Thursday

Bringing two teacher programs to town will require $2M raise

Email | Print By Amy Griffith Graydon

The status of Teach for America in Nashville? The Mayor’s Office has announced that an announcement is coming.

Mayor Karl Dean and Elissa Clapp of Teach for America are slated to hold a press conference Thursday morning to announce whether Teach for America will set up shop in Nashville public schools this year.

An update will also be provided on the mayor’s efforts to raise private funds to support first-year operations of Teach for America and another program, the New Teacher Project. Dean has stated his intentions to raise $1 million for each program.

Teach for America, which places high-performing recent college graduates in high-need schools, would – if Nashville is selected as a program site – bring 30 new teachers to the district in each of the next three years, starting in 2009-2010. For teachers, Teach for America is a two-year program, which means the organization will provide a total of 60 teachers in Nashville each year starting in the fall of 2010.

For its part, the New Teacher Project would aim to recruit a larger number of teachers but would work within the district’s own human resources office to make those hires. The New Teacher Project would aim to attract professionals interested in embarking on teaching as a second career, particularly in hard-to-fill subject areas at troubled schools.

The programs would not come free, and with the district’s budget for this school year already approved, there’s no room this year for start-up costs for the two organizations. Getting both projects to Nashville in time for the 2009-2010 school year, Dean has said, will require a total of $2 million to be raised by the end of this month. Teach for America will require, in addition, commitments for another $1 million per year for the next two years.