While models such as Teach for America have taken some flack in recent years for their lack of adequate preparation and lack of a long term model, no one disagrees with the goal of the program: to help struggling students in struggling schools, usually urban ones, find greater academic success. The Blue Engine Program, which is currently getting off the ground in three New York City Schools, seeks to tackle the same problem, but with a new approach.
In a profile of the Blue Engine Program in The New York Times, David Bornstein writes that the program — which recruits and places recent college graduates as full-time teaching assistants in high schools, helps teachers shift to a small-group classroom model with a ratio of one instructor for roughly every six students, uses data tracking to generate rapid feedback, and provides weekly instruction in “social cognition” classes — has “seized the attention of educators and attracted notice from President Obama.”
Last year in participating schools, the number of students who met the “college-ready” standard — scoring above 80 on their Regents exams in algebra, geometry, or English language arts — nearly tripled, from 49 to 140. Gains, since the program started in 2010, have been larger in math than in English, but when classes can function as collaborative small groups, it is no wonder that more students stay on task and learn more.
Katherine Callaghan, principal of the Bronx Leadership Academy II, says, “Blue Engine has moved a huge number of our students in a way that nothing else that we’ve ever tried has been able to do.”
This spring, the organization received 578 applications from 187 universities and colleges for 43 teaching assistant slots; one-fifth came from Ivy League schools; more than two-fifths were from African-Americans and Latinos. And all of them are vying for jobs that have a starting salary of $14,400 per year (plus an AmeriCorps educational award of $5,550).
There is a team behind the good results, and a price tag, too. Katherine Callaghan, the principal, said it costs about $150,000 to have 10 BETAs (the name for the teaching assistants) in the school, money that comes from her discretionary budget.
One thing limiting expansion and improved outcomes, according to Blue Engine founder Nick Ehrmann, is our current classroom model. “That model will be radically transformed over time,” says Ehrmann. “It’s going to become a combination of strong teachers at the center, new forms of human capital, and the right technologies. I don’t think anyone knows what environments will be best for kids. We’re in the process of inventing it right now.”
For more information, please visit these websites: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/a-team-approach-to-get-students-college-ready/?_r=0
