January 2019 - Rutgers University’s Center for Effective School Practices (CESP), was one of two Universities selected by the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) for the Diversifying the Teacher Pipeline grant. Ms. Heather Ngoma, Director of the Alternate Route program, and her team were awarded $375,000.00 for their project entitled Diverse Teachers for Diverse Schools.

The funding will support the partnership with a consortium of Passaic County charter schools to expand recruitment and training opportunities.
Diverse Teachers for Diverse Schools is driven by the expressed interests of school leaders who wish to leverage the impact of research studies which demonstrate gains in learning for minority students when they are taught by teachers from similar backgrounds.

The goals of this project are to:
(1) increase representation of black and Latinx candidates hired to teach in collaborating schools, and in STEM-related or ELL classrooms;
(2) ensure collaborating schools have knowledge and systems for supporting underrepresented candidates with state certification requirements and for helping them access financial incentive options;
(3) enhance the capacity of school-assigned mentoring teams to establish more effective mentoring relationships with teaching candidates from under-represented groups;
(4) establish systems and resources to enable collaborating schools to enhance and sustain their recruitment, mentoring and induction initiatives beyond the grant period, and
(5) conduct and disseminate on-going research on the implementation and impact of the initiative to recruit and retain teaching candidates from under-represented groups.

CESP would also like to congratulate Montclair State University who was the other recipient of this grant.

For further reading, check out NJDOE ’s announcement of the grant.