AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS TO
ANNOUNCE RECIPIENTS OF AFT INNOVATION FUND GRANTS
~ Projects Are Bold,
Collaborative Education Innovations to Improve Teaching
and Learning ~
July 2011
Washington D.C. --
On Monday, July 11, 2011, the American Federation of
Teachers will announce the five recipients of the AFT
Innovation Fund grants. The money seeds and cultivates
promising union-led ideas to improve public education.
So far, fifteen grants have been made to support groundbreaking
work across the nation. Grantees are opening teacher-designed
charter schools, developing a national institute to
nurture labor-management cooperation, and creating online
professional networks to support teachers as their districts
redesign evaluation and pay systems.
The AFT Innovation Fund is
the first union-led, private foundation-supported effort
that provides grants to AFT affiliates nationwide to
develop bold education innovations in public schools.
Teachers and their unions are not afraid to take risks
and share the responsibility for student success. These
innovations are designed by teachers and their unions
and incorporate school and community partners. These
public school entrepreneurs want to push the envelope
to affect student outcomes and include fresh ways to
evaluate, pay and recruit teachers.
Recipients of the AFT Innovation
Fund grants and the programs that will be funded are:
-
Mary Armstrong, president of the St. Louis
Federation of Teachers Union, receives funding
for a high-quality, district-wide professional development
program for early childhood and pre-K teachers and
paraprofessionals that builds on the union's previous
successful advocacy for an increase in pre-K seats
in the public school system.
-
Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers
Union, receives funding to design instructional
units that include curriculum, instruction and performance
assessments aligned to the Common Core State Standards.
The units will focus on K-3 math; elementary interdisciplinary
content; adolescent and young adulthood mathematics;
career and technical education; and English language
arts.
-
Judy Hale, president of the West Virginia Federation
of Teachers, receives funding to work with partner
organizations to convert an elementary and a middle
school in Charleston into true community schools
that offer a range of supports and opportunities
for children, families and their communities, including
health and social services.
-
Bernie Jiron, president of the Denver Federation
for Paraprofessionals & Nutrition Service Employees,
receives funding to create a model employee incentive-pay
program call "The Good Food! Incentive Pilot" that
will reinforce the district's nutrition and wellness
efforts to combat obesity among schoolchildren.
-
Ellen Bernstein, president of the Albuquerque
Federation of Teachers, receives funding to
develop research-based professional development
materials and model curricula that will help teachers
of English language learners (ELLs) implement the
Common Core State Standards. The project, a partnership
with PBS affiliate WETA, will focus on teaching
ELLs in grades 1, 4 and 8.
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