Relay Forms New Teacher Prep Center
Relay Graduate School of Education (Relay) today announced that it will create Teacher2 (TeacherSquared), a national center dedicated to transforming the way that new teachers are prepared to teach our nation’s public school students. Relay was one of five centers funded through a new initiative sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Teacher2 will bring together participating teacher preparation programs focused upon four themes: building novice teachers’ competencies, supporting teacher educators, enabling data-driven improvement, and meeting the needs of schools and communities. In practice, Teacher2 will create a searchable resource bank, standards and templates for data analysis, a set of national teacher educator institutes, and other initiatives to support participating institutions. Under the leadership of Dr. Brent Maddin, the center will become a nationally recognized place where innovative teacher prep programs collaborate and where, over time, teacher educators will gather to learn and grow.
“For far too long, programs dedicated to training novice teachers have worked mostly by themselves to make their programs great. Teacher2 aims to increase sharing among these programs and endeavors to challenge, inspire, and support them to reach even higher levels of greatness,” says Dr. Maddin.
Teacher2 will work collaboratively to strengthen the capacity of at least half a dozen teacher education providers – across 20 sites in 10+ states – to produce an annual pipeline of at least 2,500 effective, diverse novice teachers by 2019. Initial members include Aspire Public Schools, the Sposato Graduate School of Education, Urban Teachers, the YES Prep Teaching Excellence program, and all Relay campuses.
Over time, Teacher2 intends to grow its membership to include other programs, including alternative programs as well as institutions of higher education. For more information, contact sharing@relay.edu.
About Relay Graduate School of Education
The Relay Graduate School of Education is a national, accredited, nonprofit institution of higher education whose mission is to teach teachers and school leaders to develop in all students the academic skills and strength of character needed to succeed in college and life. Now operating in eight sites across the country, Relay is eager to bring about transformational change in teacher preparation, becoming the place where a new generation of continuously-improving, results-focused individuals can fulfill their destiny in the world’s greatest profession. For more information, please visit the Relay website (www.relay.edu) or follow Relay on Twitter (@RelayGSE).
