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5 Ways We Can Start to Dismantle White Supremacy in Our Schools

All children deserve a good education, but too many of them do not receive one. Unsurprisingly, students who are most likely to attend under-resourced schools with underprepared teachers are poor, Black and brown. It is a situation that has stagnated for decades, but now the U.S. is at a reckoning point where our Black and brown school-aged children outnumber white school-aged children nationally. 

However, teacher demographics are not diversifying at remotely the same pace. If we believe that all children deserve a good education, then we must make an honest effort to recruit and train more Black and brown teachers to serve—and represent—these chronically disenfranchised populations.

Click here to read the full Education Post article from Sposato alumnae, Ashley Davis and Taylor DeLoach.

Sposato's elementary residency program receives high marks from NCTQ

The elementary teacher residency and licensure program of The Charles Sposato Graduate School of Education has been named among the top in the country by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), a nonpartisan, not-for-profit research and policy organization, for strong commitment to quality clinical practice experiences aimed at preparing aspiring teachers for the realities of the classroom.

Sposato’s elementary residency program stands out as among only seven non-traditional residency programs and 33 traditional undergraduate or graduate elementary programs nationwide that earn an A for strong clinical experience requirements, and serves as a model of excellence for others

Click here for the full press release.

The Four Horsemen of Feedback and How to be a Better Teacher

Swayed podcast: Candid interviews with a range of experts to explore perspectives on power and influence.

“What is the biggest indicator of teacher success? It is probably not what you are assuming. Listen to a conversation with Scott McCue, Dean of Sposato Graduate School, discuss his experience developing and training teachers. Whether you are in the academic or corporate world, he provides insightful and valuable ideas for creating a culture of feedback.”

Click here to listen to the podcast.

How Income Share Agreements Helped our Education School Grow

The founder of Match, Mike Goldstein, and the Dean of Sposato Graduate School Education, Scott McCue, wrote a piece for Education Next about Sposato’s unique income share agreements for its master’s candidates, which shift the risk away from students and create more transparency in the tuition process.

“In 2011, we were opening a brand-new graduate school of education. Ours was the typical start-up problem. We had no track record. Why should customers—recent grads from selective colleges who wanted to become schoolteachers—choose us? What was our competitive advantage? We were willing to live or die on job placement. We believed we could generate teachers that principals would really want to hire, and that our graduates would get multiple job offers in springtime. So why not finance things differently?”

Click here for the full article.

Teaching the teachers

The Sposato Graduate School of Education was recently featured in the cover story of The Economist magazine, called "Teaching the teachers."  The article highlights alternative schools of education, like Sposato, as a necessary ed reform for improving student outcomes because they provide real-world experience to teacher trainees through hours of practice teaching and high-grade feedback.

Click here for the full article.

As Teacher Academies Flourish Under ESSA, Massachusetts Could Guide the Way

The 74 Million by Scott McCue and Orin Gutlerner

Co-Directors of The Charles Sposato Graduate School of Education (CSGSE), Scott McCue and Orin Gutlerner wrote an OpEd published by The 74 Million on the need for non-traditional teacher preparation programs and how already-existing programs in Massachusetts, like CSGSE, are leading the way.

Read the full article here.

Match Education’s Sposato Graduate School of Education is One Leading Member of a New National Center to Advance Teacher Preparation

The Sposato Graduate School of Education (SGSE) at Match Education is part of a new national center – called TeacherSquared—that will be dedicated to transforming the way new teachers are prepared to teach U.S. public school students. The center is one of three new centers that received funding through a new initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Click here to read the full press release.

Click here to read the Education Week article that details the other four grantees to receive funding through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's new $34 million investment to improve teacher-preparation programs' overall effectiveness.

Match Education Partners with New Schools for New Orleans to Offer Training for Instructional Leaders

Match Education, a Boston-based nonprofit that operates high-performing 
urban public charter schools and a unique graduate school of education that trains teachers for 
high-poverty schools, announced today a multi-year partnership with New Schools for New 
Orleans (NSNO) to train approximately 15 instructional leaders per year in New Orleans 
public charter schools.

Click here to read more.

Match-ing Students to Excellent Teachers

The Pioneer Institute of Public Policy Research released a detailed paper on the effectiveness of the Match Teacher Residency program. The research suggests that our teacher preparation program is a possible solution to the shortage of high-quality teachers and therefore, ought to be a model for other charter schools, district schools, and traditional schools of education.

Click here to read the press release.

To read the full Pioneer Institute paper, click here.

Common Core turns focus to teacher training

Now that states are aligning their tests with the more rigorous Common Core standards, many students' proficiency rates are dropping.  In order to increase these plummeting rates, much of today's research points to teacher quality as the most important influence on student achievement.  USA TODAY highlighted Match's teacher prep program as one program in which teachers are trained extensively so that they are "competent in the real challenges they will face" in the classroom.

Read the full article here.

Coursera Partners with Match Education's Sposato Graduate School of Education

Read the full Ed Week article here.

Coursera, a major player in the world of providing "massively open online courses" in higher education, is making its first move into the world of K-12 schools through an effort to provide free training and professional development to teachers in the United States and other countries.   Seven institutions and organizations have agreed to partner with the Mountain View, Calif.-based company in posting professional-development and teacher-training resources online, Coursera officials said. They include  Match Education's Sposato Graduate School of Education.

MA Board of Higher Education Approves Match Education to form Graduate School of Education

March 6, 2012, Boston.  Today, the Massachusett's Board of Higher Educaiton approved Match Education to form the Charlie Sposato Graduate School of Education.

The graduate school is the first such institution created in Massachusetts in several decades. It will carry the name of Charlie Sposato, in memory of the master teacher who taught 33 years in the Framingham Public Schools before becoming Match's founding principal in 2000.

The graduate school will grant a new degree called a Master in Effective Teaching (MET).  The training is exhausting and uncompromising. To get the MET, teachers must do more than excel in coursework.  They must also succeed during their first year as actual full-time teachers.  During this rookie year, degree candidates will be evaluated based on several metrics -- including student achievement gains and neutral outside observers.  Holding graduate students accountable for success in the actual classroom is unprecedented in Massachusetts.  

The teaching faculty at the graduate school is comprised mainly of master teachers who have become principals in some of the nation's best charter and district turnaround schools.

The goal of the graduate school is to prepare jaw-droppingly good rookie teachers for urban charter and district turnaround schools -- folks who are so effective that they defy common perceptions of what level of success is possible for brand new teachers.

The graduate school will collaborate with other institutions which prepare teachers.  They include several Boston area graduate schools of education as well as Boston Teacher Residency, as well as cutting edge groups nationally like the University of Michigan, Relay Graduate School of Education, and Teach For America.