Program to Nurture Excellence In The Social Periphery

Schools in the periphery have always found it harder to recruit talented teachers due to the distance, the working conditions and the more limited opportunities for the families of teachers. Government incentives for teachers to relocate to the periphery are in many cases ineffective, as in practice, they supplement salaries for veteran local teachers. The existing cadre of excellent teachers is isolated and they have reported difficulty in leading students to higher achievements with little support from the principal, fellow teachers and parents.

Teach First Israel, one of our veteran partners, has developed an innovative approach to recruiting excelling young people, training them, and placing them in schools in the social and geographic periphery. Over the past six years, TFI has trained 800 new teachers, 170 of which were part of a designated track for mathematics and science teaching. Currently teaching in 159 schools, TFI’s graduates bring with them a refreshing energy, passion and drive, and many of them maintain their teaching positions for longer terms than originally anticipated.

TFI is now proposing to leverage its success and work with schools with a critical mass of TFI alumni (7 teachers or more) in order to nurture a comprehensive school effort to increase excellence. They will use the current national success in five-unit mathematics as a driver to instill a culture of grit and effort among students and teachers. To do so, TFI will rely on mathematics and science teachers, using pedagogic tools such as learning communities, classroom-based video observation, instructional coaching and adaptive teaching.

Initially, TFI will choose 10 schools and will carefully learn their needs. Following extensive interviews with the school staff and analysis of students and teacher data and trends, they will propose a clear theory of change and execution plan, and will define criteria for selecting schools with which to work. Six schools, in which TFI alumni comprise a significant proportion of mathematics and science teachers, will be selected for a pilot program. Each school will devise specific goals to increase excellence, initially in mathematics and the sciences, and then in other subjects as well. Schools will establish a leading team to implement the process, headed by the principal, including both veteran teachers and TFI alumni, and five-unit mathematics and science teachers. Each school will receive a tailor-made package of training and instructional coaching to help them lead the school to achieve its excellence goals.

* The text presented above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation Board / Grant 234