In the summer of 2000, NYC Public Schools Chancellor Harold Levy was under pressure from the state to fill the city’s teaching positions with certified teachers by 2003. He turned to The New Teacher Project for help developing and implementing a program that would inspire outstanding young and mid-career professionals to teach in the city’s most under-performing schools. In collaboration with the New York City Department of Education, The New Teacher Project created the NYC Teaching Fellows, which attracted over 2,300 individuals to apply for the 250 available positions. The quality of the applicant pool was so exceptional that the program was expanded to 350 new Fellows that year. Among these exceptional participants were:

	Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's speechwriter
	Vice-president at Viacom
	Producer of the television program "Dateline"
	Technology executive with a JD/MBA from the University of Chicago

Due to the program’s success in bringing highly-qualified teachers to New York’s classrooms, the size of the program was expanded to 1,100 Fellows in 2001, 1,900 in 2002, 2,600 in 2003, and, due to a decreased need for elementary and social studies teachers, 1,850 in 2004. Approximately 16,700 people applied for the 2004 program, generating an impressive ratio of over nine applicants for every available position; ultimately, 28 percent of all new teacher hires in New York City in 2004 were Teaching Fellows. Today, there are over 6,000 NYC Teaching Fellows actively teaching in New York City, accounting for approximately 10 percent of the total teaching faculty within the NYC Department of Education. In fact, there are more Teaching Fellows in New York City than there are total teachers in the public school systems of San Francisco, Milwaukee, or Boston.

The Teaching Fellows program has not only redressed a dire teacher shortage in New York City, but it has also filled vacancies with a particularly outstanding group of teachers:

	The average GPA of the Fellows was 3.29
	40 percent of the group are people of color
	24 percent of the group hold advanced degrees
	Among the undergraduate institutions most attended by Fellows are NYU, Columbia, Cornell, and Fordham

The Teaching Fellows program has also been able to target its efforts at New York City’s high-need areas, particularly minorities and hard-to-staff subject areas. For instance, math and special education are consistently problematic areas for New York City. In 2004, 317 new math teachers were hired through a Math Immersion program, and 578 Fellows started the school year as Special Education teachers. In all, 83 percent of the individuals ultimately selected to become Fellows in 2004 were eligible to teach high-need subjects to city students. Of the 6,000 total Teaching Fellows currently working in the New York City schools, almost half (49%) are assigned to shortage-area subjects.

The success of the Teaching Fellows program has been heralded in New York City and across the country. The program has been highlighted by President Bush as a creative solution to the teacher shortage, and its success has generated positive press in publications from The New York Times to Education Week. In his July 2003 report to Congress, “Meeting the Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge: The Secretary's Second Annual Report on Teacher Quality,” Education Secretary Rod Paige specifically cited the NYC Teaching Fellows program as one of the most promising alternative models for teacher credentialing nationwide. As current NYC Public Schools Chancellor Joel Klein declared, “Great teachers make all the difference for a school and great teaching is, quite simply, the key to raising student achievement. By becoming New York City Teaching Fellows, these new teachers have made an extraordinary commitment to our children.” Now entering its fifth year, the NYC Teaching Fellows program continues to exceed all expectations.

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