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The New Teacher Project: Our Clients

Kansas City, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri School Districts

In the summer of 2000, the Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri School districts were struggling to fill more than 300 teacher vacancies in each district before the start of school. Challenged by early retirement incentives, higher salaries in neighboring suburban districts, and a shrinking pool of education school graduates, the districts were competing for a limited number of certified teachers out of a common pool of applicants. In the struggle to meet this high demand and to maintain high quality standards for new hires, the districts partnered with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and The New Teacher Project. Together, we developed and implemented a program to bring a group of highly talented individuals into the classrooms where they were needed most. As a result, in two states where alternative routes to teaching were rare to non-existent, these two school districts began to partner across state lines to implement a new and innovative program called the Kansas City Teaching Fellows.

The New Teacher Project worked with both districts to create an intensive recruitment campaign, which in its first year attracted over 400 applicants for 60 positions. In 2002, the second cohort of 92 Fellows was selected from a pool of 560 applications. These Fellows, who represented more than 25 percent of the new teachers hired that year in each district, were a diverse group of individuals with strong records of achievement:

	The average GPA of the Fellows was 3.2
	21 percent of the Fellows have an advanced degree
	35 percent were people of color
	70 percent were eligible to teach in high need subject areas

Kansas City principals have been enthusiastic about the teaching ability of the Fellows, and are eager to continue expanding the program. In regards to the performance of the 2001 cohort of Fellows:

	92 percent of principals report that the Fellows were as well or better prepared than other first year teachers
	88 percent of principals report that Fellows were as effective or more effective than all first year teachers in affecting student achievement
	85 percent of principals report that Fellows raised student achievement at least one grade level

Equally impressive is the dedication of the Fellows to their schools; 95 percent of the 2001 cohort of Fellows completed their first year of teaching, and 87 percent completed both their first and second years. At some schools, Kansas City Teaching Fellows represent 25-40 percent of the total staff; at one high school, seven out of the eight members of the science department are Fellows.

Based on the strong community response and the effectiveness of the Fellows in the classroom, we have institutionalized the Fellows program as a continuing source of new teachers. The New Teacher Project has now officially transitioned out of the Kansas City Teaching Fellows program, having built a strong local capability and expertise in the execution of the program and set up the Kansas City Teaching Fellows as a separate nonprofit organization. The districts, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and The New Teacher Project are all confident that the groundwork developed in the first years of the program and the expertise transferred locally will ensure continued success for the program in the future.

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