Brown University News Bureau

The Brown University News Bureau

1997-1998 index

Distributed May 11, 1998
Contact: Kristen Lans

Two-year fellowships

Annenberg Institute selects fellows to discuss improving urban education

Thirteen university professors, urban educators and administrators have been selected to serve two-year terms as Senior Fellows for the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, based at Brown University. They will be charged with examining ways to improve urban education by focusing on improved teacher recruitment, training, support and retention.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Thirteen university professors, urban educators and school administrators from across the nation have been selected to receive senior fellowships at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. They will be given the task of formulating ideas to improve urban education by improved recruitment, training, support and retention of city teachers.

The senior fellows are an ethnically diverse group chosen to represent the mostly poor and minority student population of urban schools. They will serve two-year terms, meeting at least 20 days each year. They will begin at a meeting May 28-30 at Brown.

Focusing on teachers is central to improving education in urban schools, where statistics reflect a need for better training and support, according to John Starr, managing director of the Annenberg Institute. Fourteen percent of urban educators have no teaching license or only temporary emergency licenses - twice the rate of non-urban schools. Urban middle-school students are about twice likely their non-urban peers to attend schools where at least one teacher leaves before the end of the school year, statistics show.

Ideas for improvement generated by the fellows will be disseminated through position papers in research journals, op-ed pieces in newspapers and magazines, and other publications.

The fellowships fufill the mission of the Annenberg Institute, one of the nation's leading advocates for the redesign of American schooling. Founded in 1993 as the National Institute for School Reform with $5 million from private donors, it was later renamed to honor U.S. Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg, whose $50 million gift expanded the Institute's mission and scope. Annenberg challenged those involved in education reform to concentrate their efforts where the problems of public schools were most serious - the cities.

The fellows were selected from a pool of 80 nominations by a committee of Annenberg Institute staff, outside educators and foundation representatives. They will receive an annual $10,000 honorarium.

The following were selected as fellows:

Editors: For additional information on individual Fellows, contact Kristen Lans at the Brown University News Bureau: (401)863-2476.

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