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Math and science initiative

Recognizing the urgent need for excellent math and science education in this country, we have launched a concerted campaign to bring increasing numbers of outstanding math and science teachers to our country's lowest-income communities. Currently, 1300 corps members are teaching math and science to more than 130,000 secondary school students. We aim to more than double this number to 2,000 corps members serving 300,000 students by the year 2010.

The program

This initiative begins with intense recruiting on college campuses, especially at those schools with strong math, science and engineering programs. In just the last two years, this approach has helped us increase the number of math, science and engineering majors who apply to join Teach For America.

In addition to recruiting and selecting a growing corps of individuals with strong content-area backgrounds, we are working to ensure that our math and science teachers have the training and support they need to succeed with their students. By 2010, Teach For America endeavors for 50 percent of its first-year and 80 percent of its second-year corps members to achieve significant academic gains—currently defined for math and science teachers as 80 percent mastery of ambitious standards-based content—with their students. This requires content-specific training at the summer institutes and targeted ongoing support through the two-year commitment.

Finally, this initiative aims to develop programming necessary to maximize the degree to which our alumni continue working beyond their two-year commitments to improve math and science education practice and policy.

Sponsors

Our efforts will be successful only with the continued investment of companies and organizations that recognize that the students of today are the scientists and engineers of tomorrow.

• Amgen, National Math and Science Partner
  The Amgen Foundation has pledged $5 million over five years towards our math and science initiative. Through the Amgen fellows program, made possible with this support, Teach For America offers modest signing bonuses to particularly sought-after math and science majors who commit to join the corps. Click here to read profiles of some of the 2008 Amgen fellows
• Medtronic, Underwriter, Math and Science Initiative
  Medtronic is funding the costs of a full-time executive director of this initiative who coordinates our math and science programming (from recruitment through admissions, training, ongoing support, and alumni programming) and engages the broader math and science education and policy communities both to enlist additional resources and expertise in our effort and to share our experiences and learnings. Medtronic is also funding the costs of strengthening the content-area and grade-level specific training and professional development provided to our corps members who are teaching math and science.
• NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
  NASA is helping Teach For America train and support thousands of America’s most promising future leaders to become excellent math and science teachers in our nations highest need urban and rural schools. In 2008 Congress directed NASA to provide Teach For America a significant, noncompetitive grant,* which supports development and execution of Teach For America’s pre-service training and ongoing support programming, including the creation of new online resources for our teachers. In addition, NASA shares its extensive expertise in providing K-12 educators with the tools and learning opportunities to increase their STEM knowledge and its vast array of hands-on learning experiences designed to inspire the next generation of scientists and explorers. Learn more about the NASA Office of Education.
• The Noyce Foundation, Math and Science Recruitment Sponsor
  By underwriting the costs of our Director of Math and Science Recruitment, the Noyce Foundation has enabled us to more effectively target the top math, science and engineering majors at colleges across the country. Our Director of Math and Science Recruitment serves as a resource in focusing our recruitment teams on this critical objective, developing messages and materials that help persuade math and science majors to apply and join Teach For America, marshalling the support and involvement of math and science faculty and corps members and alumni in campus recruiting efforts, and focusing on some of the leading math and science schools such as Caltech and MIT.
• The Richard Lounsbery Foundation, Math Teacher Evaluation Sponsor
  The Lounsbery Foundation is funding our Research & Evaluation team's work with the "Learning Mathematics for Teaching Project" led by Deborah Loewenberg Ball at the University of Michigan. We are examining more closely what makes a successful math teacher, and the data gathered from this study will inform programming for math and science teachers, including content-specific preparation and professional development.

Contact
Katie Bowen
Teach For America
kathleen.bowen@teachforamerica.org
(202) 552-2400 x223

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