Every year, public elementary and secondary schools welcome nearly 700,000 additional students—all with a range of learning styles and diverse needs. Meanwhile, schools and districts across the country are facing teacher shortages in many areas and need qualified educators who know how to effectively teach the children in their classrooms.
As part of an overall effort to prepare a growing number of skilled and nurturing educators, the Bank Street Graduate School of Education recently announced several new academic programs: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Residency Program, Early Childhood General Education Advanced Standing Program, and a handful of new online master’s degree and certificate programs.
These programs are grounded in Bank Street’s signature developmental-interaction approach, which helps all educators and children develop to their fullest potential.
“We wanted to find innovative ways to extend our reach so that more educators with different skill sets and interests can access a Bank Street education,” said Cecelia Traugh, Dean, Graduate School of Education. “In turn, a growing number of children, families, and communities across the country will benefit.”
The new TESOL Residency Program will support teachers interested in working with pre-K–12 students learning English as a new language. First-year students will participate in a full-time paid residency in a high-performing public charter or district school in New York City. During their second year, they will be eligible to be hired as a full-time teacher of record.
The residency program was made possible through a generous grant from the Walton Family Foundation and offers a reduced tuition fee to increase accessibility for educators working with a vulnerable population of learners. Additionally, the program will work to increase diversity in the profession—more than half of enrolled students will identify as people of color and all will have studied a language other than English.
“Students benefit when they have teachers of the same race, ethnicity, or gender,” said Traugh. “Investing in residency models increases both the quality and diversity of our nation’s teacher pool by providing access to highly effective preparation models at an affordable cost.”
Another new program, the Early Childhood General Education Advanced Standing Program, was born from a collaboration between the Graduate School and the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE). The master’s degree program is designed to help the more than 1,000 New York City early childhood teachers that do not have state certification.
“While some New York City teachers do not have state certification, what they do have is considerable teaching experience,” said Katherine Baldwin, Project Director. “Through the Advanced Standing Program, they can deepen their practice and build from what they already know as they work toward certification while continuing their role as teachers.”
Rounding out the Graduate School’s latest initiatives is the development of new online programs. Bank Street is partnering with Meteor Learning, a leader in supporting higher education institutions with online programs for adult learners, to launch several programs, including:
- Early Childhood Special Education – MSEd, EdM
- Childhood Special Education – MSEd, EdM
- Early Childhood Special and General Education Dual Certification – MSEd
- Childhood Special and General Education Dual Certification – MSEd
- Early Childhood Leadership
- School District Leader
“Like all Bank Street graduate programs, our new online offerings combine the study of human development, learning theory, and sustained clinical practice to produce well-prepared educators who are ready to provide their students with meaningful opportunities best suited for their learning and growth,” said Bank Street President Shael Polakow-Suransky, GSE ’00.
The TESOL Residency Program will begin Fall 2019; Bank Street’s Early Childhood General Education Advanced Standing Program will begin on campus this summer. Online programs in both teacher education and leadership will be offered starting in Fall 2019.
To learn more about the TESOL Residency Program and Early Childhood General Education Advanced Standing Program, please visit graduate.bankstreet.edu/tesol and bankstreet.edu/ece-advanced, respectively. To learn more about the Graduate School’s new online degree programs, visit online.bankstreet.edu.