Massachusetts Awards Grants to Strengthen Teacher Pipeline through Partnerships

MALDEN - Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Mitchell D. Chester today announced almost $270,000 in competitive grants to support seven partnerships between public school districts and educator preparation organizations. The Elevate Preparation: Impact Children (EPIC) Partnership Innovation grants are designed to improve the pipeline of high-quality teachers for K-12 schools.

"Investing in education and our children is an investment in the future of the Commonwealth," said Education Secretary Jim Peyser. "Creating a pipeline of high-quality teachers to facilitate that investment and challenge our students is a worthwhile endeavor, and I look forward to the results of these important partnerships."

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has made improving educator effectiveness a priority, and in line with that, the funding announced today will be used to:

• develop programs that improve the quality and/or quantity of prospective teachers who meet partner districts' needs,
• revamp the expectations of educator preparation programs to better align with partner districts' priorities, and
• create new models for placement and support of student teachers.

By cultivating partnerships between district leaders and educator preparation organizations, the grant seeks to advance innovative, evidence-based approaches to recruit, place, develop and retain new teachers, particularly in some of the hardest-to-fill roles.

The Department will collect, document and share grant recipients' promising practices with other districts and educator preparation organizations.

"Our intent is to better align educator preparation with the needs of districts to help ensure all students have a strong teacher in their classroom," Commissioner Chester said. "I expect that the recipients of this grant will serve as models and encourage further collaboration between districts and preparation programs."

The recipients are as follows: