Lisa KingAn Education Pioneers Fellowship with The New Teachers Project
This summer I am interning at The New Teacher Project through an Education Pioneers fellowship. The New Teacher Project is a national non-profit dedicated to increasing the number of outstanding individuals who become public school teachers while creating environments for all educators that maximize their impact on student achievement. Education Pioneers, a national non-profit, grants summer fellowships to graduate students in business, education, law, public policy and other programs with the mission of attracting and developing talented leaders capable of transforming K-12 urban education by matching fellows with impactful summer internship projects.
My fellowship kicked off strong with a two-day workshop during which I met the other 49 members of the New York City cohort (there are about 180 fellows total this summer in five cities). Through fun ice-breakers, sharing of personal stories and discussing serious issues about education reform, we all got to know a lot about each other quickly. I feel honored to be among such a diversely talented, intelligent and ambitious group of people - all of whom are passionate about the same cause. We also got to spend an hour with Dave Levin, co-founder of KIPP Schools, picking his brain about his organization and the role of the charter school movement in education reform.
I am intrigued by The New Teacher Project and my initiative. I am designing a set of services and tools for principals to help them be strategic about staff planning to anticipate vacant positions early – helping them quickly interview and hire high-quality candidates. My work will be implemented in October when a new initiative is launched. This is a stretch project for me, and I am thrilled that my manager has given me room to run as well as support and guidance when I need it. My first impressions of the organization are that:
- It is very high-functioning (my orientation was thoroughly thought-out and planned, meetings are efficient and professional, many work remotely so accountability is high)
- Individuals are highly driven and autonomous (with many working remotely, individuals are self-motivated and there is a great deal of trust within the organization
- The culture is very friendly and open (shared passion leads to true friendships among coworkers).
While learning a great deal, I also feel a strong responsibility and lots of excitement knowing that my project will have a tangible impact this fall.
Journal 2:
The first half of my fellowship and internship has been going very well…
I’ve been to three workshops through Education Pioneers, the organization which granted my fellowship, focusing on district reform, charters and choice and teacher quality. Each workshop exposed me and my cohorts to pioneers and leaders in their fields and led to in-depth discussions on these challenging issues. I had the opportunity to co-moderate a panel on the charter school movement, which was fun and a great chance for me to improve my public speaking skills. Throughout this experience, I am consistently struck by how complex the problems in education really are… just when I think I understand the nature of the problem, another point-of-view makes me aware of something I hadn’t thought about before. This learning experience has been tremendous and it is helping to guide me towards making a more informed decision about where I want to work post-MBA.
At The New Teacher Project, I have settled into my project. After a few weeks of intense research and interviewing, I now have a better understanding of how school leaders think about staff planning and how they and partner organizations such as TNTP work to anticipate upcoming vacant positions and how to hire to fill them. I am using this knowledge and building upon existing TNTP systems to design a new web-based tool to help school leaders and TNTP partners manage this complicated process of staffing a school, with the goal of doing so strategically and efficiently to ensure getting the best teachers with the right ‘school fit’ in the building. A great deal of research has shown that the quality of a student’s teachers is the single biggest influence in that student’s achievement level… so I am exited to be working on an initiative that seeks to ensure that talented, high-quality teachers are placed in classrooms where they are most likely to succeed… thus increasing the likelihood that any given student will have his or her best chance to succeed in learning and achievement.
