Provide Support for Educators; Combat Staffing Shortages
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Across the country schools and school districts are working to combat teacher shortages and to ensure that high-quality new teachers can successfully navigate the path to enter and lead classrooms each school year. On that path, in many communities, new teachers must demonstrate their qualifications through teacher certification exams. Today, Study.com, an award-winning learning platform, announces a partnership with Teach For America (TFA), a nonprofit that works to confront educational inequity by recruiting exceptional and diverse leaders to teach, tutor, and lead schools and systems. The partnership will support incoming TFA teachers as they prepare for and meet local certification requirements in the communities where they work.
The 3-year contract was awarded to Study.com through an RFP process, which followed a successful pilot program to create a consistent and centralized test prep strategy for the thousands of new teachers who TFA recruits, trains and supports to lead classrooms in communities across the country. With a 92% pass rate, Study.com is trusted by thousands of teacher candidates and will partner with TFA to ensure that talented and diverse new educators are prepared to enter classrooms at the start of every school year.
“Every year Teach For America recruits thousands of emerging diverse leaders to teach in high need classrooms across the country. As these new educators prepare to lead classrooms where every student has the opportunity to learn, lead and thrive, they spend months training and earning the certifications necessary to take on their new roles,” said Erin Rackers, Vice President for Matriculation at Teach For America. “Study.com’s research-backed teacher test prep and resources provide our new teachers important support, so that they can focus even more of their energy on the needs of their students and classrooms.”
Through the partnership, TFA’s new corps member teachers have unlimited access to Study.com’s proven test preparation and academic supports, part of their ongoing training, learning and support to ensure that students have access to high-quality and impactful educators. Additionally, Study.com provides TFA insights on new corps members’ preparation progress, informing TFA’s coaching and support model.
“As the teacher shortage and retention crisis continues to affect schools across the nation, we are honored to partner with Teach For America to foster a more diverse and representative educator workforce,” said Dana Bryson, SVP of Social Impact at Study.com. “We are proud to collaborate with innovators like Teach For America who are committed to developing new and sustainable pathways for recent college graduates and other young professionals entering the teaching profession to become certified teachers, nationwide.”
The partnership began as part of Study.com’s Keys to the Classroom Initiative, a coalition committed to deploying what is working to develop a more diverse and representative educator pipeline and help prepare aspiring educators in the classroom. Study.com partners with state education departments, school districts, colleges of education, and education-focused nonprofits to help aspiring educators prepare and pass their credentialing exams. Keys to the Classroom is currently in 20 states, and Study.com has committed to donating over $4 million in test prep materials. Across the nation, hundreds of teacher cadets are currently enrolled in Keys to the Classroom, including 50 percent who identify as people of color.
For more information, please visit: https://teachinglicense.study.com
About Teach For America
Teach For America works in partnership with communities across the country to expand educational opportunities for children. Founded in 1990, Teach For America finds, develops, and supports a diverse network of leaders who expand opportunity for children from classrooms, schools, and every sector and field that shapes the broader systems in which schools operate. Today, Teach For America is a force of 70,000 alumni, corps members, and Ignite fellows working in pursuit of profound systemic change so that one day every child has an equal opportunity to learn, lead, thrive, and co-create a future filled with possibility. Teach For America is a proud member of the AmeriCorps national service network. For more information, visit www.teachforamerica.org and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
About Study.com
Study.com opens the door to the life-changing impact of education for over 34 million learners and educators a month through its award-winning online learning platform for K12 curriculum, college courses and test preparation. With learners and educators in over 11,000 school districts nationwide, Study.com is recognized by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) for meeting Level IV evidence standards. Headquartered in Mountain View, CA, Study.com has been honored as one of the world’s most innovative companies by Fast Company and included in the GSV150, celebrating the world’s most transformative private companies in education, for the last two consecutive years. The company has donated $29 million across social impact programs committed to increasing educational equity. These programs include Working Scholars®, an accelerated pathway for working adults to earn a debt-free bachelor’s degree, and Keys to the Classroom, which seeks to help aspiring educators prepare for and pass their teacher certification exams.
SOURCE Study.com
