FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 25, 2019
CONTACT: Patricia Lamiell, lamiell@tc.columbia.edu, 212-678-3979
ATTENTION EDITORS: Photos of Long Island participants are available through the contact listed above.
New York, NY – As increasing segregation in American schools looms large as a public concern, five New York-area and national foundations have donated a total of more than a quarter-million dollars to support the Reimagining Education Summer Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University, helping it grow into a vital source of professional development and thinking about racial and ethnic diversity in schools.
Educators, administrators, policymakers, school board members and parents – and even some students – participated in this year’s fourth annual Institute from July 15-18, tripling attendance from 160 in the first Institute in 2016 to more than 450 this year, with a waitlist of more than 100 people who would have attended if there had been space.
The Institute’s growth demonstrates the high level of interest and commitment of funders and education stakeholders to improving teaching and learning in the nation’s increasingly diverse schools and classrooms. About 1,250 participants from across the country have come through the Institute.
The five foundations are the Rauch Foundation, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, The Nellie Mae Education Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Booth Ferris Foundation.
“To create truly integrated schools, educators need to embrace new and innovative ways to engage students and prepare them for a global society,” said Amy Stuart Wells, Professor of Sociology and Education at Teachers College, who launched the Institute and serves as its director. “We need to reimagine teaching and learning.”
The Rauch Foundation has supported the Institute each year since 2016. This year, it funded scholarships for 32 educators from Long Island in the four-day Institute. These Rauch Foundation Fellows were organized by ERASE Racism, the regional civil rights organization based on Long Island, and came from 14 schools as well as central administrations in five school districts.
The Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation funded the communication of the impact of the Institute and assisted in providing special outreach to teachers from the Latinx community and the inclusion of Ethnic Studies. The Nellie Mae Education Foundation provided tuition support for fellows from New England. The Ford Foundation is funding the ongoing work of Wells and Teachers College, which partners with schools who send educators to the Institute. The Booth Ferris Foundation donated funds that were critical in launching the Institute.
Wells founded the Institute to address two cross-currents in American education: While more than half of all children enrolled in American K-12 public schools are students of color, the vast majority of public school teachers are white. In addition to increasing educator diversity, education professionals need help in developing materials and effective teaching styles that can reach all students in their classrooms.
Developed by Teachers College faculty and students across seven of the College’s 10 departments, Reimagining Education provides educators with hands-on strategies to make instruction relevant for students of color. From grounding the curriculum in students’ own experiences and cultural understanding, to engaging students in in-depth research projects to help them demonstrate their talents, the Institute employs an array of instructional approaches and multidisciplinary content.
“Nowhere but Teachers College, with its depth and breadth of faculty expertise, housed in many interdisciplinary departments and fields of inquiry in education, psychology and health, could this program have been created,” Wells observed.
In addition to funding Institute scholarships, the Rauch Foundation supported the development of the country’s first graduate advanced certificate program, called Reimagining Education for a Racially Just Society, launched by Teachers College this year. Educators began this 10-credit program by participating in the on-site Summer Institute from July 15-18, to be followed by three online classes throughout the academic year, designed and taught by Teachers College faculty to further the key themes of the Institute. In the final capstone class for this certificate program, students will develop an action plan for their schools and communities to be presented at next year’s Institute.
“Education equity is one of the Rauch Foundation’s top priorities, and Teachers College is an essential resource in that regard,” said Nancy Rauch Douzinas, President of the Rauch Foundation and a Trustee of Teachers College. “The Reimagining Education Summer Institute provides a vital opportunity to bring educators together on this issue and engage leading advocates like ERASE Racism in reconceiving public education so that it’s relevant to the experiences of all students.”
Michelle Wilson, a Rauch Foundation Fellow and school board member in the Westbury Union Free School District, said she came to the Institute because her district is struggling to engage parents from the community, which is 99 percent minority (mostly Latinx). Her colleague Maria Meyer, Director of Instruction, Assessments and Funded Programs for the district, said she came to the Institute because she had concerns about equity in instruction, assessment and allocation of resources.
Wilson said a workshop on parent engagement described a program in New York City that she thought might help parents in her own district to work together more productively. For Meyer, networking and sharing best practices with other educators helped her envision change for her own district. She also liked mixing with high school students who participated through ERASE Racism, which is also a grantee of the Rauch Foundation.
Meyer said a play about educational segregation written and performed by high school students gave her a mantra to take back to Long Island: “Nothing About Us, Without Us, Is For Us” and a “drop the mic” moment. “I’m ready to do the work, to roll up my sleeves,” she said.
Founded in 1887, Teachers College, Columbia University, is the first and largest graduate school of education in the United States and is perennially ranked among the nation’s best. Through its three main areas of expertise—education, health and psychology—Teachers College engages in disciplinary and interdisciplinary research, the preparation of dedicated public service professionals, work with local, national and global communities, and informing public policy to create a smarter, healthier, and more equitable and peaceful world. www.tc.edu.